


if it weren't for second chances

by saltsanford



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood, Canon divergent post season 2, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stabbing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26566543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/pseuds/saltsanford
Summary: Five things Johnny and Daniel argue about when combining their dojos, and one thing they agree on.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso & Johnny Lawrence, background Daniel/Amanda, background Johnny/Carmen
Comments: 95
Kudos: 226





	1. color

**Author's Note:**

> i have most of this fic outlined, but it's not all entirely written yet. i'll make a note at the beginning of each chapter if i update any tags, but just a general heads up that the tags will likely grow as i continue to post.

_"I'm running from nothing, no thoughts in my mind,_   
_oh my heart was all black_   
_but I saw something shine,_   
_thought that part was yours, but it might just be mine,_   
_I could share it with you, if you gave me the time,_   
_I'm all bloody knuckles, longing for home,_   
_if it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone."_

-"Second Chances," Gregory Alan Isakov

* * *

“Seriously, LaRusso? You running a dojo or a massage parlor in here?”

It’s the first thing out of Johnny Lawrence’s mouth when he sets foot in Miyagi-do for the first time. Daniel closes his eyes, forces himself to count to three and breathe. _Breathe._ He can do this. _They_ can do this. “Very funny.”

“I’m serious,” says Johnny. He’d just spent two minutes stomping around the dojo in silence, picking up Daniel’s old trophies and making faces, rolling his eyes at the balance pond, touching the walls and the rocks and the mats until he’d finally landed here, in front of the heavy bag outside. Daniel watches as he gives it an experimental push and throws a combo, _jab-cross-roundhouse._ “We’re gonna have to spice this place up.”

Daniel really doesn’t know what he was expecting here—in hindsight, any measure of tact was too much to hope for—but it feels like baring his soul, showing Miyagi-do to Johnny and fine, it hurts a little to have that stomped on. “Nothing is getting spiced up. This place is perfect, it has everything we need—”

“Whoa, whoa, hang on.” Johnny stops wailing on the heavy bag and faces Daniel, arms folded. “We agreed to teach _together._ Just because we’re using the Miyagi-do space doesn’t mean we just do everything your way—”

“That’s exactly what it means. It’s not like we can use Cobra Kai—”

“Yeah, because Kreese fucking _stole_ it from me!”

“And whose fault is that?”

They’re up in each other’s faces, fists clenched and jaws set before Daniel can even register how it happened. He unfurls his fingers and takes a step back. _Breathe, LaRusso._ “Look—”

“Like you’d agree to do anything my way even if we did have to use the Cobra Kai dojo,” Johnny says sulkily. He’s still leaning forward, itching for a fight so badly he’s almost trembling with it. Daniel wonders if he even notices. “Then you’d have to admit that I have some good points.”

Daniel snorts. “Yeah, like what? Strike first, strike hard—look where that got us.”

For a moment, he thinks Johnny really is going to hit him, but then the opposite happens and it’s much worse. He deflates and looks away, running a hand through his messy blond hair. “You know what? Screw this. And screw you too, man. I don’t know why I thought—”

“Alright, alright.” Daniel snags Johnny’s arm above the elbow as he turns to go. Johnny tries to pull away and normally but Daniel would let him, but not this time. He tightens his grip, yanks Johnny around and holds him fast. “Just—hold on and listen.”

Johnny’s eyes bore into him as Daniel breathes again. He’d been hoping—selfishly, he can admit—to avoid this conversation. It had all made so much sense two days ago, when he and Johnny had coincidentally been driving to talk to each other at the same time and found themselves at opposite ends of the same traffic light, some invisible beam of understanding passing through them as they locked eyes.

Daniel had pulled the car over while Johnny threw his in park at the intersection and they’d stood there right in the middle of the crosswalk, horns blaring all around them. He’d said “alright look, just hear me out—” as Johnny was saying “I already know you’re gonna hate it, but I have an idea—” and then they’d stopped and stared at each other some more, the air around them practically vibrating in its intensity.

“Wait,” Daniel had said finally, “you want to? Really?”

Johnny had hesitated only briefly before nodding once. “Yeah. It’s our best chance. Together.”

“You want to _teach_ together. With me.”

“It’s for the kids, LaRusso, don’t make it weird.” 

But Johnny had been grinning and so was Daniel. They’d shook hands and it had felt kind of like something was falling into place, like everything in their lives had led up to this moment, to this tremulous alliance formed in the middle of rush hour traffic, to a promise made to protect the kids they both cared about so deeply. 

Two days ago and it feels like a lifetime, like they’ve never been farther from understanding each other. He’s never been good with words and neither has Johnny, but Daniel’s not letting either of them walk away this time, not when they’re only a few details away from something good. If what it takes to get there is giving voice to the guilt eating them both alive, then that’s what Daniel is going to do.

No matter how painful it is.

“We both had students in that fight,” Daniel makes himself say, and Johnny goes very still. “We both let it get that far. We both…”

He hesitates. For several long seconds, the only sound is the wind in the trees, the balance platform sloshing quietly in the water.

“We both failed them,” Daniel continues, his voice cracking. He tears his eyes away from Johnny’s, realizes he’s still clutching his arm and lets that fall too. “They got hurt because of both of us, and I’m…I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Johnny mumbles after another agonizing few seconds and if his voice breaks too, well, Daniel’s not going to be an asshole about it.

They stand there for a while and glare in opposite directions, arms folded tightly against their chests, both breathing slow and deliberate.

“Alright,” Johnny says finally, voice gruff. He clears his throat and stares determinedly at a point several inches above Daniel’s head. “Some of it’s fine. The heavy bag outside is pretty sweet. But this has to be mine, too. I mean, why can’t we start fresh at a new place?”

“Because it just makes sense to be here,” says Daniel. “It’s already set up and licensed as a dojo. The mortgage is paid off, we don’t even have to pay rent. We can bring students in now instead of risking them going to Cobra—to Kreese.”

Johnny sighs and drops his eyes to Daniel’s. “Fine. But I want the snake on the wall.”

“No way.”

“Why not? It’s badass. We’re not using the stupid fucking tree as our logo.”

“It’s a _bonsai,_ ” Daniel says through gritted teeth, “and it meant a lot to Mr. Miyagi.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m not saying we have to turn all your precious trees into firewood. Keep them in the yard or whatever, but it’s not going to be our logo. It’s lame. Kids don’t want lame, they want cool. The snake is cool.”

“The snake is already Cobra Kai’s logo,” Daniel reminds him. “We can’t use it. You want Kreese to try to sue you next?”

Johnny deflates a little at that. “Fuck that guy. That’s just the kind of pansy bullshit he’d pull, too.”

“Look, we can worry about the logo later,” says Daniel. And the name, and the teaching style. He can’t even think about putting together a lesson plan with Johnny Lawrence when they just almost came to blows over color schemes. “Let’s just…start with paint swatches.”

“ _Paint swatches?_ ” says Johnny, as if Daniel just suggested turning the dojo into a massage parlor after all. “We’re not starting some girly craft project together, I just wanted to put up my trophies and not get any crap from you about it.”

“You were just complaining about needing to spice this place up! You want this to feel like yours too, right? Your dojo had a lot of red, so let’s figure out where the color accents can go—”

“Christ, then let’s get a bucket of red paint and put it on the walls—”

“We’re not painting the wood, that’s mahogany, you don’t _paint_ mahogany—”

“Ugghhhh.” Johnny drags his hands down his face. “LaRusso, just get in the car. We’re going to the hardware store.”

* * *

“Okay, look. I’ve narrowed it down to five paint swatches, so tell me which one you like.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I told you, just pick one, I don’t care.”

Daniel resists the urge to throttle Johnny, if only because he doesn’t need to add aggravated assault in aisle sixteen of Lowe’s to their laundry list of problems. “Yes, you do care. I kind of like the Poinsettia, it’s a bit more subtle, but I figure you probably want this hideous Real Red. So if we go with Heartthrob in the middle, then that’s a nice compromise. It’s bold, but not obnoxious…”

He trails off, realizing far too late that Johnny is no longer standing next to him. With a muttered curse, Daniel leaves the paint aisle, growing increasing irritated with each empty aisle he stalks down.

For one uncertain moment, he wonders if Johnny left. If the paint swatches were the final straw. If Johnny had only just realized what he’d gotten himself into. Daniel’s about to scope out the parking lot for the challenger when he finds Johnny in the very last aisle, loading a cart up with two-by-fours.

Daniel tracks the two-by-fours with his eyes, heart suddenly in his throat. The old scars on the backs of his knuckles tingle and he forces himself not to look at them, not to check for blood that he knows isn’t there. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m buying lumber, genius,” says Johnny, without looking up. “Do you have a miter saw?”

“A what?”

Johnny rolls his eyes and flags down one of the employees and thrusting a post-it note in his hand. “Hey, man. Can you cut these for me to these dimensions?”

Daniel watches the Lowe's employee saw the wood to Johnny’s specifications and refuses to think of his skin splitting open on a wooden training dummy. "Johnny. What are you planning to do with the lumber?”

The sharpness in his voice finally pulls Johnny’s eyes up to his. Daniel’s not sure what his face his doing but it’s enough for Johnny to squint at him, suspicious. “Why do you look like you’re about to pass out?”

“I don’t look like I’m about to pass out,” Daniel snaps, willing his heart to stop thundering in his chest. “Just answer the question.”

“Whatever. I think we should put more heavy bags up. That way don’t have twenty students all waiting to use just one.” Johnny raises his eyebrows at Daniel’s silence and sighs, forcing his next words out sarcastically. “If you think that’s a good idea, too?”

Relief floods his veins, and he's left feeling a little silly. “And you’re just going to build a new stand? From scratch?”

“Some of us know how to use power tools, LaRusso,” says Johnny. He jerks his eyes to the paint swatches in Daniel’s hand. “Well? What’s the verdict?”

Daniel glances from Johnny’s face, to the two-by-fours, to the red paint swatches in his hand. “Real Red,” he says finally. “Let’s do Real Red.”

“Great.” He claps a hand to Daniel’s shoulder hard enough that Daniel stumbles forward, hard enough that it shakes the last vestiges of panic from his brain. “I’ll do the real work and you can do your little painting project. That work for you?”

* * *

As it turns out, it does work.

It’s surprisingly peaceful, painting bright red accents in the dojo while Johnny builds the heavy bag stand outside. Daniel finds an eighties rock station on Spotify and they whittle the afternoon away in a mostly companionable silence. They talk about old concerts they’ve been to, about _Rocky III_ , about what to order for lunch, about whether the new heavy bags should be alternating colors or the same.

They don’t talk about Kreese, or Robby, or Miguel, or what their next steps are going to be. These things hang over them like rain clouds, flit around them like ghosts, but Daniel can’t bring himself to break the sunny, shaky peace they’ve built here. He knows they’ll have to soon, but standing next to Johnny three days later, looking at the new red and white alternating heavy bags, at the new black puzzle mats and red accents inside, at Johnny’s trophies next to his own—

Well.

Daniel thinks they’re off to a pretty good start, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _jason momoa lawn chair dot gif_ WHAT'S UP EVERYBODY I LIVE HERE NOW
> 
> i have mimoas and a truckload of feelings about this show WHO WANTS THEM


	2. paper

The truth of it is, Johnny had been expecting that combining dojos with Daniel LaRusso would be a lot simpler. They’d have a man-to-man conversation about doing this for the good of the kids (check), put his snake on the wall (not check, but at least it didn’t look like they were running a fucking spa anymore), and duke it out to establish once and for all whose karate was superior (also, for reasons beyond Johnny’s comprehension, _not check_ ).

What he _hadn_ _’t_ been expecting was to spend hours upon hours sitting at Daniel’s kitchen table doing paperwork.

Johnny’s not an idiot. Daniel made the offer to do paperwork at his house sound enticing, what with the lure of pancakes and fresh coffee, but Johnny knows he just wanted to have this meeting on his turf. Joke’s on him, if he thinks Johnny won’t tell him where to shove it if he pulls any bullshit. Even if his wife _is_ lurking around the corner with that scary gleam in her eye.

He still can’t figure out how Daniel got Amanda to agree to let him teach again, let alone with Johnny. Daniel had explained that the promise of them teaching _together_ was actually what swayed her, that her issue hadn’t been so much with the karate as it had been with the two of them “constantly at each others’ throats and poisoning a new generation of kids against each other.”

Johnny’s not totally buying her change of heart, but still. He wonders if Amanda would run that line of thinking by Carmen. _Maybe_ , if he’s on his very best behavior, Amanda will be so moved by their alliance that she’ll tell Carmen how good it was to see them getting along. Preferably with tears, and a solemn endorsement of what a good man Johnny is.

Right.

Carmen hasn’t even been home since the accident and Johnny doesn’t know what to make of that. Is she just spending every moment she could with Miguel, in between her shifts? Or is Miguel’s state so fragile that she had to be there in case he—in case he—

Johnny can’t think about this. He’s skulked around the hospital long enough to hear the news that Miguel had woken up, but he knows fuck-all beyond that and it’s beginning to drive him a little crazy. He needs to see for himself that Miguel is awake.

He needs to know just how bad it is.

At least the tedious paperwork is keeping his mind off of the whole mess, but it’s getting more and more difficult to focus as the morning drags on. He’s just about to suggest that they take a break when Daniel drops another stack of papers in front of him. “I had my lawyer make a few tweaks to the waivers. What do you think?”

Johnny groans, dragging the forms over so he can squint at them. “Why do we need to have these stupid waivers again?”

“Because,” says Daniel, with the air of a man who’s explained this seventeen times instead of only _once,_ “we need to protect ourselves from getting sued if someone gets hurt.”

“Of course someone’s gonna get hurt,” says Johnny, “it’s a karate class, not a knitting club.”

Daniel glares at him over the mug of his coffee cup. “Our students _shouldn_ _’t_ be getting hurt in class, Johnny. This is just a precaution.”

“Relax,” snaps Johnny. “I’m just talking about sparring. Bloody lips, a black eye or two. You telling me parents are gonna sue us over a paper cut?”

“No, I’m telling you parents are going to sue us over…more serious injuries.”

Daniel’s eyes flick to the living room, where Sam and Robby are sitting quietly together, watching a movie and playing on their phones. Johnny looks too, if only for another excuse to make sure Robby is still there. A week. He hadn’t known where his son was for a _week_. It had been pure luck that he had found him, drunk off his ass at some party. Robby had been cold and angry, had told Johnny that he hated him and never wanted to see him again, which was horrible, before he’d finally crumpled against Johnny’s chest and bawled his eyes out and said, _I_ _’m sorry dad, I didn’t mean to hurt him like that, I’m so sorry, please don’t hate me._

Which was much, much worse.

Johnny had never felt like a bigger piece of shit. It was too much, his son apologizing for things that were ultimately his fault, and he’d gone to see Daniel to propose an alliance the very next day. Robby’s court case is tomorrow, where some judge who doesn’t know anything about his kid is going to decide if he goes to juvie or not. Johnny can’t even think about it without wanting to throw up.

Johnny panics as Daniel apparently reads his mind and turns to him with a sympathetic look on his face and Johnny _can_ _’t_. “We didn’t have any of this shit when I was doing karate,” he says quickly, before Daniel can say something snarky or worse, heartfelt. “My mom never filled out any waivers.”

It works. Daniel makes a face, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure she did. Honestly, Johnny, how would you even know?”

“Because my sensei was John Kreese,” Johnny snaps. “He didn’t care about things like waivers.”

Daniel is silent again for all of five seconds, which is a small miracle. “Well, he cares about them now, I can guarantee you that,” he says grimly. “And so should you, I mean, do you _want_ us to be sued?”

“Fine,” Johnny groans. “We can have the stupid waivers. What else do we need to do?”

“Decide on a dojo name.”

They both look up to see Amanda enter the kitchen. She tops off Johnny’s coffee, and he shoots her a grateful smile. It’s his third cup since they’ve arrived here at the ass crack of dawn, but lord knows he needs it to get through the day. “You can’t submit any of that paperwork without a dojo name.”

“We have a dojo name,” says Daniel, giving her what he clearly thinks is a subtle _be-quiet-now_ look. “We’re keeping Miyagi-do.”

“Like hell we are,” says Johnny, firing up at once. His eyes drop to the paper in front of him, suddenly suspicious, and scan the waiver until he finds it: _Miyagi-Do, hereafter referred to as The Dojo—_

He balls up the waiver and tosses it at Daniel, furious. “Are you fucking kidding me? You thought you can just slip your dojo name on the paperwork and I wouldn’t notice?”

“That’s not what I was trying to—”

“We use your space, your name—the hell am I even here for, decoration?”

“You’re here to teach with me,” says Daniel, and Johnny’s pleased to hear the calm start to crack in his voice, “but my karate comes from Mr. Miyagi.”

“Yeah, well, mine doesn’t, LaRusso!”

Daniel snorts. “I know all about where your style of karate comes from.”

Johnny weighs the pros and cons of upending the entire kitchen table right here and now. “I don’t get you, man. You say you want to teach together, but you shit on my karate every chance you get—”

Daniel’s calm cracks. “Because I’ve seen what Cobra Kai can do!”

“You think I don’t know the problems with the system?” Johnny leans forward, gets up in his face as much as possible with the kitchen table between them. “ _I_ was the one who was a student there. _I_ was the one who spent years dealing with Kreese’s bullshit. _I_ was the one whose sensei—”

He breaks off, breathing heavily. Daniel has a weird look on his face, like he’s about to say something, but Johnny barrels on before he can speak. “I was making Cobra Kai _better._ I was learning what worked and what didn’t, and whether you can see it or not, I taught those kids something, something good.”

Daniel scrubs both hands over his face. “That’s not—that’s not even what we’re talking about here, I’m just talking about the dojo name—”

“That’s exactly what we’re talking about. We’ve been over this,” says Johnny, his voice rising, “and we’re not just doing everything your way just because you’re too superior.”

“I know we’re not! We put up the punching bags—”

“Wow,” Johnny says sarcastically. “Thank you so much for allowing me the privilege of treating our dojo like a dojo. If you had it your way, everyone would sit around meditating and circle jerking or whatever you do in Miyagi-Do until—”

Daniel stands up so suddenly that Samantha and Robby quiet in the next room and look at them, startled. Johnny leaps to his feet as well, not to be outdone, and then jumps again when Amanda slams her palm on the table. He’d forgotten she was there.

“Gentlemen,” she says, her voice steely. “Use your words. Or if you’re incapable of doing that, take it to the dojo.”

Daniel blinks at her. “You want us to fight?”

“Of course I don’t want you to fight,” Amanda snaps, “but I definitely don’t want you to fight in front of the kids. If you can’t be civil, go…hit pads or something. Believe it or not, there are ways for you to get your aggression out other than brawling.”

“No no,” says Daniel, forcing himself back into his seat with what looks like a supreme amount of difficulty. “It’s fine.”

Johnny reluctantly follows suit, even though he’d like nothing more than to hit some pads (or better yet, hit Daniel) in the home dojo. “Look, I’m not your fucking employee, LaRusso—”

“I know you’re not!” Daniel shoves more papers at him so hard that half of them spill onto the floor. “Look! Look right there.”

He jabs his finger at some mumbo-jumbo that, as far as Johnny can tell, is indistinguishable from all the other mumbo-jumbo. Johnny squints at the paper, at both of their names next to each other, over and over. “Wait, does this mean—”

“Business partners,” says Daniel. “It says we’re business partners. Co-owners. Fifty-fifty. Of the dojo, the property, the name. All of it.”

Johnny quiets at that, staring at the document Daniel’s shoved in his face. It had been the whole point of them agreeing to combine dojos, but for some reason, the sight of their names next to each other on these official-looking papers catches Johnny off guard. He realizes that, despite everything, he hadn’t actually expected Daniel to go through with this. To recognize him a equal, a partner. To go all-in with him.

“We’re doing this together,” says Daniel, his voice calmer. “I’m not trying to exclude you, or be…superior, so stop saying that. It’s just…Mr. Miyagi was everything to me. He was my family, and I was his. This is his legacy. I just want to honor that.”

Johnny thinks that’s a bit of an understatement. He never knew Miyagi, not really, but he can see that man in everything Daniel does. There had been a moment, after he’d left Cobra Kai, when he’d found himself angry and alone and without a sensei, that he’d wondered if Miyagi might train him, too. He’d gone so far as driving all the way to the old man’s house and sat in his car for hours, but he’d never made it to the front door.

It was a stupid thought, anyway. Johnny wasn’t special, wasn’t worthy, wasn’t _Daniel LaRusso._ He was just a dumb, angry kid who made excuses for all the fucked up shit his sensei did for years until he was gasping for breath with his sensei’s arm around his throat, convinced he was about to die, until he was shaking on the ground among broken pieces of glass and plastic trophy, watching Miyagi and Daniel walk away.

If Johnny had someone who treated him like Miyagi treated Daniel, he’d want to honor that, too.

“Fine.”

Daniel jerks back, startled. “Wait, really?”

“The only name I want is Cobra Kai,” says Johnny,” and I can’t have it, because Kreese stole that, too. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I understand that it was a big part of your life,” Daniel says quietly. “I understand that you were just a kid.”

Johnny’s not talking about this. “Whatever. I guess it doesn’t really matter what we call it. If you want to keep the Miyagi-do name, then fine.”

Daniel stares at him, shocked, before his expression melts into something softer, grateful. He puts a hand on Johnny’s arm. “Johnny. Thank you.”

“Whatever,” says Johnny, a little rattled to have Daniel look at him like that, to have _anyone_ look at him like that, like he’s not a total fuck-up. “It’s just a name, it’s not a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to me,” says Daniel, and he gives Johnny’s arm a little squeeze before letting go. “And, listen. I know we’re doing this at my dojo, using my old name, but this is yours, too.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Johnny. He signs on the dotted line, shoves the paper back to Daniel. “There. It’s all official and shit. What else do we have to sign?”

It takes forever, but Daniel keeps at it with the steely-eyed, relentless pace that Johnny can only assume is what got him this house and five auto dealerships scattered across the valley. When he finally finishes and gathers the papers into neat stacks, Johnny sighs in relief. He tips back in his chair to peer into the living room, where Amanda is sitting with the kids, playing their earlier exchange back in his head.

“Your wife is hot, by the way,” says Johnny. “I like a bossy woman.”

Daniel chokes on his coffee, whipping his head around to make sure Amanda can’t hear them, his face bright red. “Johnny!”

“Relax, it’s a compliment.”

“Still. You better not let her hear you say that.”

“Why not, will she slap me? That a promise?”

Daniel rolls his eyes and Johnny grins, kicking him under the table. “I don’t know how a piece of work like you landed a woman like that, but nice job, man.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Daniel. He turns around to eye his wife. “She’s pretty great.”

They settle back into a silence, still watching Amanda and the kids in the living room until Daniel turns back to him. “You and Robby ready for tomorrow?”

“No,” says Johnny bluntly. “I mean. As ready as we can be.”

“It’ll be fine,” says Daniel. “He’s a good kid. The judge will see that.”

He watches Daniel watch Robby. “You apologize to him?”

“Of course I’ve apologized!”

Robby had barely looked at Daniel when they’d arrived this morning. At first, Johnny had been pleased that Robby was opening up to him and still giving Daniel the cold shoulder, but it bothers him the more he thinks about it. Not so deep down, he knows the real reason for Robby’s reactions. His son has come to expect so little of Johnny that being let down barely registers anymore. But Daniel…

Johnny hates to admit it, but his kid worships Daniel LaRusso. He hates admitting even more that Daniel’s been good for his kid, that Robby seemed so much calmer and more centered after their time together. And here Daniel’s cast him aside twice, once for daring to be Johnny’s son and once for making a stupid decision out of a desire to protect Sam. Not that Johnny has any room to talk to _anyone_ about letting Robby down, but it bothers him, the way Robby won't look at Daniel, the obvious hurt. His kid wears every emotion on his fucking sleeve. Johnny adds that to the growing list of things they'll have to talk about at some point.

The strained relationship between Robby and his karate mentor seems way easier to fix than sixteen years of his shitty parenting, so Johnny barrels forward. “Well, maybe you should do it again. You really let him down, freaking out like that after he was just trying to help your precious daughter.”

Daniel glares at him. “You should’ve _called me,_ Johnny, the second they showed up at your place. I was scared half to death-”

“Well, you should’ve called me when my kid was _living with you_ because his mother took off,” says Johnny, and Daniel does deflate a little at that. “Besides, not calling you was _my_ fault, not Robby’s. He was worried sick over how you were gonna react, and you sure delivered. Senseis aren't supposed to...they're just not supposed to do that shit, alright? They're supposed to...elevate, or whatever the fuck you said.”

“You’re right,” says Daniel after a long silence, and Johnny almost falls out of his chair. “You mind hanging back for a bit?”

Johnny shrugs, watches as Daniel gets up right then and there and walk over to Robby. Robby’s jaw tightens, but he follows Daniel outside. Johnny tries not to stare as the minutes pass and they talk, just drinks his coffee next to Amanda, who has wandered back in to look over their paperwork.

“You missed one,” Amanda says absently, pushing a paper towards him. “Sign at the bottom there?”

Johnny’s eyes flit back to the window, where Daniel now has Robby wrapped tightly in his arms. They flit to Amanda, who pushes the French press towards him without looking up when Johnny’s coffee runs out. They flit to the papers spread out on the table, to _Daniel LaRusso and Jonathan Lawrence,_ over and over and over.

 _Alright, fine,_ thinks Johnny, and signs his name to the final paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading/for the kudos and comments, y'all rock holy shit
> 
> _cries likes a proud mama at the fact that there's now 400+ fics in the tag despite only being in the fandom for .10 seconds_


	3. gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> removed the "canon compliant" tag since we got a season 3 trailer now - as much as i WANT these two to pull it together and work together, i think we got a ways to go until that happens. I'M SO READY FOR THE DRAMA OF IT ALL
> 
> added some character tags too; and heavy warning on the alcohol abuse for this chapter in particular
> 
> thanks so much for the kudos/hits/comments on this fic! <3 i'm really aiming to have it all wrapped up before season 3 drops.

Johnny already knows it’s going to be a pain-in-the-ass sort of day when his phone rings at six-thirty in the morning. He doesn’t even have to look at the caller ID to know who it is, just presses the phone to his ear and groans, “ _What,_ LaRusso?”

“Good morning, sunshine!” Daniel chirps. Johnny’s going to kill him. “Come to Miyagi-Do. I figure it’s time we have a solid Scheduling Strategy Session.”

Johnny can _hear_ the capital letters in that sentence. “Have a what?”

“You know, hammer out our weekly class schedule.”

“Then why didn’t you just say weekly class schedule?” Johnny throws an arm over his eyes, blocking out the offensive morning light. “Can’t you talk like a normal—”

“Just come over, Johnny.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I have coffee and bagels from that place you like,” says Daniel in a sing-song voice.

Johnny pulls his arm away and eyes the phone. “Everything bagels?”

“Yep. Now just come over before the coffee gets cold, alright?”

The call cuts out, and Johnny stares at his ceiling for a while, trying to figure out when the hell he told Daniel his favorite bagel shop. He’s almost positive he didn’t, which means…what? Daniel just happened to notice where he always got his morning coffee from?

Curiosity wins out over sleep. Johnny drags himself over to Miyagi-Do to find out that yes, Daniel not only got the shop right, but also has a tub of the chives-and-garlic cream cheese Johnny likes, and an extra-large cup of black coffee.

“Thanks,” he says grudgingly, and flops in the corner to devour two bagels and drink his coffee. Daniel keeps up a mostly one-sided conversation as he draws a neat grid on the white board, labeling it carefully with the days of the week.

Johnny’s just starting to think that maybe this Scheduling Strategy Session won’t be so bad after all when Daniel turns to him and says, “so for our first class of the day, I was thinking—”

“Morning conditioning,” says Johnny, at the same time that Daniel says “morning meditation.”

They stare at each other. “Did you really just say morning _meditation?_ ”

“Meditation is an essential part of Miyagi-Do karate,” says Daniel, immediately defensive. “It’s important to begin your training, and your day, with a clear and balanced mind. Besides, what do they need to condition for?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Jesus, he’s not kidding. Daniel raises an expectant eyebrow and Johnny sets his coffee down. “LaRusso, karate is a _sport._ These wimpy kids come in here with their noodle arms and can’t do a single push-up. How the hell do you expect them to win a fight if they can’t even hold up their own body weight?”

“We’re not training them for war,” snaps Daniel.

“Nobody said anything about war,” says Johnny, rolling his eyes. “If the kids try to do some of these moves without developing the necessary muscles and flexibility, they’re gonna get hurt.”

Daniel relaxes minutely at that. “So you’re talking like, what, a stretching class?”

“Stretching, a little weight lifting, pad work, running. Shit like that.” Johnny raises his eyebrows. “You really telling me Miyagi never made you run or hit pads?”

“He did,” Daniel admits. “I just…never thought of it like conditioning.”

“That’s because with _you_ , Miyagi knew he had to disguise what he was doing,” says Johnny, “but there are ways to keep conditioning interesting. I took the kids to this junkyard once for a training exercise and—”

Daniel’s eyes almost pop out of his head. “You took them to a _what?_ ”

“Calm down. I set up an obstacle course there, it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It sounds like a big deal. Dare I ask what other ‘training exercises’ you put your students through?” Daniel asks suspiciously.

Johnny knows he shouldn’t, but the obnoxious little air quotes Daniel makes are too much. “Well, let’s see. There was that time I borrowed a cement truck from my buddy and had them push the wheel from the inside.”

_“While the cement was inside?”_

“Yep.”

“Jesus, Johnny, are you insane? Do you know what could’ve happened?” Daniel shakes his head. “What am I saying, of course you do. Look, that sort of thing isn’t going to fly here. I actually care about my students—”

“Hey,” Johnny says sharply, getting to his feet. “I care about my students too, asshole, so watch it.”

“Doesn’t seem like it, the way you put them in danger.”

“I was standing right there,” says Johnny through gritted teeth. “I wouldn’t have let anything happen to them.”

Daniel snorts. “Sure. If you think I’m agreeing to any sort of lesson plan that involves my daughter in a cement truck—”

“Ugh, relax, LaRusso. Forget the fucking cement truck.” Johnny scrubs his hands over his face. “It was a one time thing—and it taught them a lot about leg strength and balance, by the way—but if it’s gonna get your panties in a knot, we won’t do it again.”

He won’t admit it to Daniel LaRusso’s smug face, but Johnny had felt uneasy about that whole training exercise for days afterward. He doesn’t need a shrink to tell him that it was Kreese, Kreese who he would’ve done anything for as a kid, John- _fucking_ -Kreese whose approval he’s apparently he’s still seeking on the other side of several decades.

Johnny thinks of Miguel stepping forward that day, his solemn _I_ _’ll do it sensei_ , of Miguel handing him his trophy, of Miguel so small in a hospital bed. The wave of guilt that overtakes him is so unexpected and intense that he turns away from Daniel. He wants to hit something but he’s _trying_ here, so he clenches a fist and grinds it into his palm and thinks about how Miguel taught him that, too.

“I do care about my students,” he says again, voice low. “And if you think a cement truck was bad, then maybe you should be less worried about that and more worried about what Kreese is currently teaching those kids. Don’t tell me I don’t care when I’m going crazy wondering what the hell’s going on over there.”

Johnny doesn’t know when Daniel’s moved closer to him, but the hand on his shoulder makes him jump and turn back around. “I know,” says Daniel, who has gone from anger to sympathy in all of five seconds. “I know. Look, field trips are fine, just…nothing too crazy, alright?”

“So, morning conditioning it is?” Johnny hedges, nodding at the white board.

“Morning conditioning _alternating_ with meditation,” says Daniel and fine, Johnny can live with that. He writes it on the morning time slot in alternating days.

There’s another layer of unspoken truce between them after that, and they get to work hammering out the rest of the schedule. They piece it together like a puzzle, alternating kata with sparring, self-defense with weapons work. Johnny’s just starting to think they might make it out of here alive after all when he says, “we should have a competition slot. You know, specifically for the kids who want to get tournament ready,” and Daniel goes tense all over again.

“Our students aren’t going to compete in tournaments.”

For fuck’s _sake._ “Why the hell not?”

“Our karate is a way of life,” says Daniel, for what Johnny is pretty sure is the thousandth time. “It is used for self-defense only—”

“Alright, stop.” Johnny sets his coffee cup down, dismayed to find it empty. “What is your deal with this? There’s nothing wrong with competitions. It’s a chance for the kids to put what they learned into practice, show off for their parents a bit. You know, just like football or soccer.”

Daniel snorts. “Except in soccer and football, they’re not trying to take each other’s heads off.”

“Oh yeah? You see some of the injuries those football players get?” Johnny lifts his eyebrows. “Kids can get hurt doing anything, LaRusso.”

“I know, Johnny, but this is different, I mean, this is them deliberately trying to hurt each other.”

“They’re not trying to _hurt each other,_ they’re trying to win a match.” He sighs loudly when Daniel glares at him. “Is this about the All Valley last year? I talked to Miguel about that shit, told him it wasn’t okay. It won’t happen again.”

“I know.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Daniel falls silent, and Johnny makes an exasperated gesture at his trophies. “For someone who hates competitions so much, you sure seem pretty proud of those.”

“That was different.” He gives Johnny a pointed look. “You know I only fought in eighty-four to get you the hell off my back.”

“And eighty-five?” Johnny lifts his eyebrows when Daniel doesn’t answer. “That’s right, you were defending your title, just like I was—”

“That’s not what I was doing,” Daniel snaps.

Johnny stares at him. “Then what the hell _were_ you doing? What, you manage to piss someone else off and have to defend your honor or whatever at another tournament?”

Something in Daniel’s eyes shutters closed, and Johnny immediately knows there’s a story there. He turns to face Daniel fully. “Wait, _did_ you?”

“Of course not,” Daniel say stiffly. “Look, I don’t really want to talk about this—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Johnny squints, thinking back to that stupid All Valley meeting he’d had to attend in order to reinstate Cobra Kai. “Waaait a minute. Does this have to do with why you got Cobra Kai banned from the—”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” says Daniel, his voice sharpening. “Our students aren’t competing. End of discussion.”

But Johnny’s not letting him have this one. “No, it’s not the end of the discussion. The hell makes you think you get the final say in this? Maybe we should poll the kids. I’m telling you, most of them are gonna be into the competition thing. It wouldn’t be mandatory, just—”

“I don’t care,” says Daniel. “It’s our job to protect them and we can’t protect them in a fight like that.”

“ _Protect_ them? It’s a competition, not a death match. There are rules—”

“It doesn’t matter! Those things, they don’t matter—your sensei can’t protect you, rules can’t protect you—”

Daniel stops talking, breathing hard and clenching his hands into fists. Johnny’s startled to realize that he’s shaking. “Look,” Johnny says uncomfortably, when the silence stretches on for an unbearable length of time, “is this about our fight in eighty-four? Do you need an apology or something?”

“It’s getting late,” says Daniel. “I think we’ve done enough for today.”

“It’s barely noon, LaRusso.”

“And you’ll be back here in a few hours anyway, remember? To work with Sam and Robby.”

They were planning to work Sam and Robby through a mock class later, to practice teaching a lesson together. Not that they’ve in any way hammered out what that lesson is going to be about. “Sure, but—”

“So, I’ll see you then.”

“Wait,” says Johnny, as Daniel shows every intention of exiting the dojo without another word. If what Daniel needs to get over this weird block is an apology for some stupid shit that happened thirty years ago then fine, Johnny will suck it up and give it. “Just listen—”

He snags his elbow and Daniel jerks away as if he’s been burned, putting space between them. “Don’t touch me.”

Johnny flushes. “Stop being such a fucking baby and—”

“Get the hell out of my dojo.”

_“Your dojo?”_

“Johnny, I’m not kidding—”

Johnny’s head is starting to pound in that angry, familiar way. “Look,” he says through gritted teeth, “just because you’re terrified of any part of karate that isn’t sitting around meditating or doing kata—”

Daniel jerks back a little at that, frowning. “What—I’m not terrified of it, what are you talking about?”

“You are,” says Johnny, and the moment he says it he’s knows it’s true. “You’re afraid, I don’t know of what, but—”

“I’M NOT AFRAID!”

He shoves Johnny hard enough into the wall that one of the pictures falls off and shatters on the floor. Johnny surges to his feet, enraged not so much by the push as he is by the shocked look on Daniel’s face, like he’s only just coming up for air to realize what he’s done. “Johnny—”

Johnny gets a good shove of his own in and storms out, slamming the door. He drives home too fast, head thudding with anger and absolutely itching for a drink. This is bullshit. Why the hell is he doing this, anyway? Why is he putting up with this? He doesn’t need to be here, doesn’t need to be trying to work out some stupid truce that LaRusso clearly has no real interest in. He doesn’t need this. He doesn’t need _him._

His rage is still hot and simmering when he screeches to a halt in front of his apartment, gets out of the car and—

And then the fight goes out of him all at once, because Carmen is sitting in the chair in front of his door.

Johnny stares at her, sitting in his flimsy plastic chair, the chair that she’d bought him. He’d come home one day not that long ago and blinked in confusion at the two little chairs in front of his door, until she’d come out and smiled at him and said, _everyone needs a front porch to drink their morning coffee on._

It was hardly a porch, more like a sliver of cement that technically wasn’t his, but he’d been touched every time he sat in one of those chairs. One of which Carmen is sitting in now, dressed in her scrubs with one leg crossed over the other, spine ramrod straight.

“Hello, Johnny,” she says formally.

There’s anger and tension in her voice but not outright hostility, and Johnny clutches onto this, grips the door of his challenger and croaks out a hello while his brain begins a blaring scream of _Miguel, Miguel, Miguel_ in the background.

“I know you’ve been to the hospital,” she says.

“I haven’t,” says Johnny. “Not since I found out he was awake, I swear. I just needed to know he was gonna wake up.”

She nods and Johnny wants to scream. “Is he…”

He doesn’t know how to phrase his question. He can’t ask her if Miguel is okay when he’s obviously not, but he needs to know, he needs to _know_ —

“Miguel wants to see you.”

Her eyes flick to his hands as Johnny sags a little, lets the car door take even more of his weight. “He does?”

“Yes.” Carmen stands, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. “Do you want to follow me to the hospital?”

He can hardly believe his ears. “Are you sure?”

“Not really,” she says. “We have a lot to talk about. But my son wants to see you, so…let’s start there.”

Looking back, he can barely remember the drive to the hospital. Johnny keeps a laser-focus on the back of Carmen’s car, as if he doesn’t know the way to the hospital, as if losing sight of her means he’ll lose his chance at seeing Miguel. He drifts dreamlike through the parking lot, up the stairs, until he’s staring at the door to Miguel’s hospital room and Carmen is saying she’ll be back in fifteen minutes and he’s walking in and—

“Sensei?”

It’s all Johnny can do not to fall to his knees. Miguel is sitting up against a bunch of pillows, bright-eyed and grinning with his hair too long and falling in his eyes, but also with a brace still around his neck and some sort of brace holding his legs still.

“Jesus Christ,” Johnny croaks, and clutches at the door frame.

Miguel’s beaming face turns to one of alarm. “Are you crying?”

Of course he’s not fucking crying, he can’t even remember the last time he cried, except he can, it was standing in this very doorway looking at this very kid, and it was the week after that when he’d found Robby, and then the week after _that_ when the judge had banged her stupid gavel and said _community service it is_ and Robby had fallen against him and Johnny had buried his face in his son’s hair and said _thank fucking christ,_ and—

And apparently these kids are turning him into a big fucking softie because he stumbles into the room now and falls into the chair beside Miguel’s bed and when he says, “I’m sorry,” his voice is thick and choked and his cheeks are suspiciously wet.

“What—sensei no, why are you sorry?” Miguel asks, alarmed. He pats Johnny’s arm very gently, as if not to scare him off, and Johnny grabs his hand.

“You shouldn’t have gotten hurt,” says Johnny. “None of you. But especially not like this.”

“It’s karate,” Miguel says wildly. “Sometimes you get hurt.”

“No,” says Johnny. He clears his throat and tries to pull himself together, focuses on Miguel’s hand wrapped in his own. He can feel Miguel’s pulse against his palm, warm and strong. “I need you to listen. I’m sorry.”

“Sensei, you don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do,” says Johnny firmly. “And it _is_ my fault—no, just listen.”

He takes a deep breath. He needs Miguel to understand this and for once he thinks, tries to choose his words carefully. “What happened to you…to all of you…would not have happened if LaRusso and I had…”

Had what? Had talked to each other, had listened, had done a million things differently? “Been better men,” he finishes. It’s not quite right, but it’s close enough. “None of you kids should’ve gotten sucked into that whole warring dojos bullshit. It wasn’t right, and we were so caught up in our own shit that we didn’t even notice until…until it was too late. Okay? We were the adults and we knew better. Or we should’ve ,anyway. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Miguel. “Okay. I forgive you.”

It’s more than Johnny deserves, but he grasps at the words like a lifeline. He gives Miguel’s hand a final squeeze and lets it go reluctantly. “I heard you showed Robby mercy in that fight.”

Miguel drops his eyes. “Yeah. I did.”

“I’m proud of you,” says Johnny. “And I’m sorry that he hurt you. It’s not my place, but…I know he didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” says Miguel, after several long seconds of silence. He picks at a stray thread on the hospital blanket. “I’m still mad. But…if I hadn’t shown mercy, it would’ve been him in the hospital. I…I almost broke his arm, sensei.”

“I know.”

Miguel finally looks at him. “I don’t know what would’ve been worse. Being in the hospital, or putting someone else there.”

Jesus, this kid is so mature, so much better than him in every way. “You are one smart kid, Diaz.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” says Miguel with a grin. “You should’ve heard me a week ago. I’ll probably still sound like that again. I just…I don’t want to be angry. Not like that. My mom…my mom says my dad had a temper. A bad one. I don’t want to be like him.”

“You aren’t,” says Johnny. “I mean. Not that I know your father. But you’re your own man. A good man. Your mom knows that, and so do I.”

Miguel looks at him with too-bright eyes and in that moment, Johnny knows there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for this kid. He looks away, lets Miguel dry his eyes before he hears him clear his throat. “So. Sam says you and Mr. LaRusso are working together now?”

“Yeah,” says Johnny. He thinks of Daniel shoving him, of the way he’d stormed out, and shoves the images right back down. “Kind of. We’re working on it.”

“She…” Miguel’s eyes flick away, then back to him. “She also said Kreese owns Cobra Kai now?

Shame washes over Johnny, but he forces himself to nod. “Some, uh. Some legal bullshit. But it’s okay. I’m with LaRusso now, and we’re gonna make a place for kids to go. Get them away from Kreese.”

“I’m sorry he did that to you,” says Miguel. “That must’ve been hard.”

Johnny shrugs. “I should’ve seen it coming. Shouldn’t have trusted him again the first place.” He sighs. “You were right about that.”

“Wish I hadn’t been.”

“Yeah, well. You’re smarter than me.” He gives a featherlight punch to Miguel’s shoulder. “Think you can convince some of your old classmates to come over to Miyagi-Do?”

Miguel’s face splits into a grin. “Heck yeah!”

“Good, because we’re going to need you. You gotta rest up, get better.” Johnny hesitates, but he has to ask, has to know. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” says Miguel. “I can feel my legs, but they’re…heavy. I’m tired a lot, too.”

“Then you need your rest,” says Johnny firmly. He stands, ruffling Miguel’s hair. “You also need a haircut. Or is this the new look these days?”

Miguel rolls his eyes as Johnny leaves and heads back to where Carmen is waiting for him. She’s no sooner stood up and is opening her mouth to speak when a doctor appears at the end of the hall. “Hey, Carmen…can I talk to you? It’s about Miguel.”

Johnny almost has a heart attack on the spot, but he forces himself to turn around. This isn’t his business. This isn’t his family. This isn’t—

Carmen’s fingers close around his wrist. “It’s okay, Johnny. You can stay. If you want to.”

He can see it then, the terror buried deep in her eyes beyond walls and walls of steel. Johnny can’t possible fathom what she’s going through. At least he and Shannon had had each other to bounce their thoughts off of when Robby had gotten really sick, not that he’d been a whole lot of help in that department. Carmen has her mother, thank god, but…

Johnny doesn’t know if he can be her someone, or if he even wants to, but he knows that he doesn’t want to leave her in alone in this too-bright hallway with whatever this doctor is about to tell her about Miguel.

“Yeah,” says Johnny. “Yeah, of course. I’ll stay.”

* * *

Daniel checks his phone for the thousandth time, his rage only growing when he finds nothing. No missed calls, no responses to the dozen text messages he’s sent. He dials Johnny’s number again and listens to it ring and ring.

“He’s not coming,” Robby says finally. He shrugs when Daniel looks at him. “I’m telling you. If he hasn’t shown by now, he won’t.”

“Typical,” Daniel grumbles, then catches the disapproving look on Sam’s face. “What?”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little insensitive?” she asks. “I mean, something could’ve happened to him. Or maybe…”

The look on her face finally makes him set his phone down. “Or maybe what?”

“Well,” she hedges, “I know he went to see Miguel today, and—”

“He did?” Daniel asks, while Robby shifts uncomfortably.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“We….had a fight,” Daniel admits.

Sam and Robby give him twin disapproving looks. “Dad…”

“Don’t look at me like that, it wasn’t my fault!”

Except it was, he realizes in a guilty flash. For the millionth time, he wonders if he should’ve just told Johnny about what really happened in eighty-five, but the thought alone makes him want to crawl out of his skin.

He shoves the thought aside. “Did his visit with Miguel not go well?”

Sam shrugs. “I thought it went okay. Miguel texted me, he was really happy Carmen brought Sensei Lawrence by. But…” she hesitates, glances at Robby. “They’re not sure how long it’ll be before he can walk on his own again. Maybe Sensei Lawrence didn’t take the news well.”

Shit. “Alright, just….” He sighs. “Robby, why don’t you hang out here a bit? I’m going to stop by your place, see if I can find your dad.”

Robby doesn’t need an explanation, but he does look worried. “Please text us when you find him.”

Daniel kisses the top of Sam’s head and pats Robby’s shoulder affectionately before heading out the door. He dials Johnny’s number once more and this time, it goes directly to voicemail.

He drives across town to Reseeda with mounting dread, replaying his earlier conversation with Johnny over and over. He shouldn’t have told him to get out, should have made him stay. He should’ve been honest, or if he couldn’t do that, at least not have lashed out over a reasonable suggestion. He remembers, with uncomfortable clarity, on one of his earliest dates with Amanda, how some scene in a movie had freaked him out so badly that he’d ending up in the parking lot of the theater, trembling from head to toe with no recollection of how he’d gotten there. Amanda had taken him to a quiet corner and helped him breathe, had wiped the tears from his cheeks with the pads of her thumbs. He’d been mortified, convinced he had scared her off, but she’d stayed and listened as he’d told her everything, about Kreese and Silver and Barnes and the hysterical way he’d thought he was going to die right there on that mat in eighty-five, in front of all of those people.

She’d suggested therapy, and he’d tried to make himself go over the years, but he could never make it stick. It was easier to pretend the whole thing had never happened.

Most days.

He can’t think about this right now. He turns into the parking lot of the apartment complex where Johnny lives, dismayed to find the challenger missing. He knocks on Johnny’s door anyway, finally giving up and leaning against the door. He’s starting to get worried now.

The hospital. Maybe Johnny hadn’t left, or had went back. It’s the only lead he has, so he gets back in his car and begins another drive across town.

It’s pure luck when he drives past the bar and spots Johnny’s car parked outside across two spots. Daniel whips a u-turn as soon as it’s safe to do so. He hesitates for a moment, fingers drumming anxiously on the steering wheel as he tries to come up with something to say to Johnny. When the minutes drag on and his mind remains blank, Daniel gives it up and stomps inside.

He spots Johnny right away at the bar, throwing back a Coors Banquet with five empty ones in front of him. Three empty shot glasses previously filled with god knows what are stacked upside-down in the middle of the beer bottle graveyard. Everyone seems to be giving him a wide berth.

Daniel watches as Johnny tosses back the rest of his beer and slams it on the bar. “’Scuse me,” he slurs, “can I get another—”

Furious, Daniel storms up to the bar and wrenches Johnny’s hand down. “He will not have another,” he says firmly to the bartender, who shrugs and turns to his next patron.

Johnny squints at him, then yanks his arm away when he realizes who’s gripping his wrist. “LaRusso? The hell are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you, asshole!”

“Why? You following me around or—”

“We were supposed to teach together tonight!” shouts Daniel, and half the bar turns to stare. “Johnny. What the hell are you doing?”

“None of your business what I do,” says Johnny, words slurring together slightly. “Just fuck off, man. Leave me alone and get out of here.”

No.

He could, Daniel realizes. Johnny’s giving him an out. An out from their partnership, their truce, an out from dealing with whatever this is, but—he doesn’t want an out. He wants this to work. He wants them to move past these kind of blocks. He wants to go back to this morning when they’d put together their training schedule on that stupid white board until Daniel had gone and fucked it up.

And he _doesn_ _’t_ want to leave Johnny alone at this bar.

“Fine,” says Daniel evenly, “but you’re coming with me.

“Fuck you,” sneers Johnny. “Bartender—”

“No,” says Daniel, “you’ve had enough.”

“He’s right, bro,” says the bartender. “You’re cut off.”

“You’re just realizing that now?” Daniel snaps. “Whoa, Johnny, where are you going—”

“Was just leaving anyway,” says Johnny, stumbling towards the door. “Put it on my tab, Tony. And fuck you very much.”

Daniel levels another glare at the bartender and takes off after him, catching Johnny just as he’s fumbling his keys to get in the challenger. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re not driving.”

“Fuck _off,_ LaRusso,” Johnny snarls, trying to move him out of the way. He stumbles, catching himself on the side of the car. “I’m fine—”

“You’re not fine,” says Daniel, blocking him again. “Johnny, so help me god, give me those car keys.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’m going to physically take them from you.”

Johnny snorts. “Like you _could_ —”

Daniel lunges forward and wrests the keys out of his hand. He’s got the element of surprise on his side, plus the fact that Johnny’s so drunk that he’s in no state to put up a real fight. He squints at Johnny’s face. There’s something there, beyond the fuzziness of the booze, beyond the obvious anger. “What the hell happened?”

“Huh? Nothin’ _happened_ —”

“Sam said you went to see Miguel,” says Daniel, and Johnny goes very still. “Is he alright?”

There’s a long pause until Johnny nods, to his surprise. “He’s gonna be. Yeah. Tough kid. Good kid, you know? Doctors think he’s gonna walk again. They want him to start physical therapy.”

“But that’s great news,” says Daniel.

“You think I don’t know that?” All of a sudden, Johnny’s yelling. He fists his hands in Daniel’s shirt, shoves him back against the challenger and holds him there. “You think I don’t—you think I didn’t want this? He’s gonna be _fine,_ and Robby’s gonna be _fine,_ and it’s the best fucking news and now I—now I—”

“Now you what?” Daniel asks. He doesn’t make an effort to push Johnny away, just reaches up to steady his elbows when he stumbles. “Now you _what,_ Johnny?”

Johnny’s grip on him tightens. “Carmen asked me if I’d help,” he bites out, anguished. “If I’d help Miguel—with his recovery, some exercises and shit, you know…help him move around his apartment ‘cause I live right there an’ all.”

“And you don’t want to help?”

“Of course I want to help!” Johnny yells. “But I—you’ve seen what a shit father I am, _LaRusso_ , I’ve got one kid terrified of himself now ‘cause he thinks he’s gonna hurt someone else, and a student who needs my help getting back on his feet, and they’re both counting on me, and I’m—”

His voice cracks and he lets Daniel go, turning away. “Johnny,” says Daniel, seeing all at once where this is going, “you’re not going to fuck it up.”

“Of course I am—”

“No, you’re not.” Daniel grabs him now. “Is that what this is? You coming here, trying to fuck it all up before it even begins? Take the easy way out?”

“I’m not taking the easy way out!”

“You are,” says Daniel. “You are. That’s what you always do. You come here, act like a piece of shit so people treat you that way, so people don’t expect anything of you—you deliberately miss our lesson thinking what, I’ll call off our whole partnership?”

He knows immediately by the look on Johnny’s face that he’s hit the nail on the head. “Fuck you—”

“No, fuck _you!_ ” shouts Daniel. “Well guess what? It’s not going to work. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving, I’m not calling this off—”

“Sure seemed keen to call it off earlier,” snaps Johnny.

Daniel pauses, guilt twisting his stomach into uncomfortable knots. “That was…look. I’m sorry about that, alright? There’s some stuff I haven’t told you, and that’s not fair—”

“ _I DON_ _’T CARE!_ ”

Johnny yells so loudly that the noise from inside the bar momentarily falters. “I don’t care, LaRusso! I don’t care about the shit you went through in the past, and I don’t care about our stupid fucking dojo, and I don’t care about….about being some other kids father when I can’t even be a father to my own!”

“I think you do,” says Daniel. “I think you care so much that you can’t even stand it, and I think that terrifies you.”

Johnny raises his clenched fist like he’s going to crack Daniel right across the face. He’s shaking all over, face screwed up and jaw tight, eyes bloodshot. Daniel stands there and waits until Johnny’s pounds his fist against Daniel’s chest, head bowed. “Fuck you,” he chokes out, “fuck you, and fuck this.”

He knocks his fist against Daniel’s chest again before dropping his forehead there. Daniel lets him, holds tight to his arms as Johnny shakes out every ounce of rage and pain until he’s quiet.

“Come on, asshole,” says Daniel. “Let’s get out of here.”


	4. water

“What the fuck,” says Johnny’s voice from somewhere above him, “are you doing on my floor, LaRusso?”

Daniel jerks out of the meager slumber he’d finally managed to slip into and almost pulls something in his back. Johnny is standing over him, arms folded, brows pulled together in a tight frown. He looks as awful as Daniel feels.

“Glad to see you’re not dead,” Daniel grumps, pushing himself gingerly to a sit. He’d dragged the couch cushions into Johnny’s bedroom to make a bed for himself on the floor, but they haven’t been much help in preventing the full-body ache he feels now. “Do you have any coffee?”

“Coming right up,” Johnny says sarcastically.

Daniel staggers to his feet, following Johnny into the living room. He almost bounces right off of Johnny’s chest when he whips around suddenly. “Where’s Robby?”

“At my house,” says Daniel, pushing past him. “You asked me this half a dozen times last night, Johnny.”

“Oh,” says Johnny. “So he’s okay?”

“Of course he’s okay, you think I’d be here if he wasn’t okay?” Daniel starts opening. “I told him I’d tracked you down and told him to spend the night in the home dojo—”

“With his girlfriend?”

Honestly, the nerve. “My _wife_ is home, she’s not going to let them spend the night together.”

“Uh-huh,” says Johnny suspiciously.

“I didn’t think you’d want him to see you…you know, drunk, staggering around.” Daniel hesitates. “Sad.”

Johnny narrows his eyes. “I wasn’t _sad_.”

“The point is, I didn’t think he needed to be babysitting his drunk dad.”

“But you did?”

Daniel meets his eyes over the breakfast bar. “Yeah,” he says evenly. “I did. Someone had to.”

Johnny scoffs and yanks the—cheap, definitely horrible tasting—coffee grounds out of Daniel’s hands. “Get the fuck out of my kitchen. You’re making a mess.”

Daniel obliges, leaning against the counter while Johnny bustles around making coffee. “You should drink some water,” he offers eventually.

“Jesus,” says Johnny, shoving a coffee mug at Daniel so hard that some of the precious liquid slops over the sides. So much for not making a mess. “Why are you here again?”

“Because someone needed to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit in the middle of the night,” snaps Daniel. “Seeing as I’m the one who drove you here, that happy task fell to me.”

Johnny rolls his eyes, flopping on the couch with his own mug. “I’ve passed out drunk before, LaRusso.”

“Yeah, about that,” says Daniel, then hesitates. This is the sort of conversation you’re probably supposed to ease into, but he and Johnny have never eased into anything in their lives. Daniel doesn’t know if this is the right time, doesn’t know if anyone’s ever voiced what he’s about to say to Johnny, doesn’t know if it’s even place.

But, perhaps most importantly, he also doesn’t know if Johnny has anyone else to say this to him.

“This isn’t…okay,” he starts awkwardly, gesturing towards the not insignificant amount of empty beers cans littering the counter top, but Johnny’s already rolling his eyes.

“If I’d wanted to be harassed about my drinking first thing in the morning, I’d have stayed married to Shannon.”

“Well, maybe Shannon had a point.”

“Whatever—”

“You have a problem, Johnny.”

Johnny blinks at him, momentarily startled before rallying. “Don’t give me that shit. Everybody drinks.”

“Not like this,” says Daniel. “What were you gonna do if I hadn’t showed up last night?”

“You know what I would’ve done,” says Johnny, irritated. “Don’t act like you haven’t been in a car with me after drinking.”

Daniel can’t argue that one. “Well, that was stupid of both of us. Look, I’m not saying I haven’t driven when I shouldn’t have, but you could’ve gotten really hurt. Or hurt someone else.”

“Okay, so, I’ll drink some water before driving next time.”

“I think you know that’s not the point.”

Johnny groans, flopping his head back on the couch. “LaRusso—”

“The point _is,_ ” Daniel continues determinedly, “that you jump right to alcohol when you’re uncomfortable, or angry, or…sad.”

“And how the hell would you know that?” snaps Johnny, jerking back up at once. “Our close _friendship?_ ”

“Am I wrong?”

Johnny scoffs, but drops his gaze. He rolls off the couch and starts moving things around in the kitchen until Daniel says, “you’re an alcoholic, John.”

Johnny’s shoulders go very still before he slams the coffee pot back down and faces Daniel. “How the fuck is any of this your business anyway?”

“Because we’re…”

 _Friends._ He almost says it and is startled into silence at the sheer ease at which the word sprung to the tip of his tongue. _Are_ they friends?

They’re not, but it occurs to Daniel for the first time that maybe the could have been. If things had been different. If he’d never gone to the beach that night, if he’d never met Ali, if he’d walked into Cobra Kai under other circumstances. They have a lot in common, Daniel’s starting to find out—in music, in karate, in their choice of father-figures. Could they have been friends?

But he had gone to the beach, and he had met Ali, and he had walked into Cobra Kai under those extremely less-than-ideal circumstances.

“Partners,” he finishes lamely, to Johnny’s raised eyebrows.

Wrong thing to say. “Sure,” Johnny sneers. “Wouldn’t want me to fuck up any of your business ventures—”

“Stop it,” says Daniel. He’s suddenly so, so tired. “Can we not do this?”

“Do what?” Johnny asks stubbornly.

“Just…think about it,” says Daniel. “Alright? At least stop driving when you’re trashed. Maybe you could go to…you know. A meeting.”

“What kind of meeting?”

Daniel hesitates, but he’s already poked the hornet’s nest, so why the hell not. “An AA meeting.”

Johnny snorts. “Sure, LaRusso. I’ll get right on that. You planning to stay here all day or something?”

“I was just leaving,” says Daniel with a sigh. He stands and puts his coffee cup in the sink, tongue tingling from drinking it so quickly. “I have to go into the dealership this morning, but we should meet at the dojo later. Finish up that class schedule.”

“Because that went so well yesterday, huh?”

They lock eyes. “Look, about that,” says Daniel, and then stops.

Johnny lets the silence sit for several seconds before waving a hand. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter—”

“Yes, it does,” says Daniel grudgingly. “Just…come over later, alright? Say, two o’clock? We’ll finish that schedule and talk about some stuff.”

“Some stuff,” repeats Johnny. “Whatever you say. Oh, fuck—I need to get my car—”

“I drove your car home,” says Daniel. “I’ll call an Uber.”

“The hell’s an Uber?”

Daniel shakes his head. He steps aside to wait for his Uber and spends the ride back to the car thinking about their conversation. They hadn’t exactly gotten anywhere, but Johnny hadn’t denied anything Daniel was saying, either. He hadn’t yelled, or kicked Daniel out, or gotten super defensive. It was almost as if Daniel hadn’t said anything Johnny hadn’t considered privately to himself in the past.

Well, it’s a start at least.

* * *

Johnny spends the morning rage cleaning his apartment out of sheer spite, even scrubs the grout in the bathroom and sweeps the little front stoop, wipes off the plastic chairs from Carmen. He takes a hot shower and shaves, makes sure his workout clothes are clean. When it’s all done, he stands in the middle of his living room, admiring the sparkling apartment and running a hand over his freshly-shaved face.

Ha. Take that, LaRusso.

It’s not like Johnny doesn’t know he needs to cut back on his drinking, if only because Robby is living with him now. The last, the absolute _last_ thing in the world he wants is for his kid to end up anything like him. Fine, maybe he hadn’t even realized just how many beer cans were scattered around the apartment until he was standing there this morning, seeing the place through Daniel’s eyes. Fine, _fine,_ maybe he’d been a complete fucking mess last night and gotten—he can barely think on it without cringing— _weepy_ drunk.

And fine.

Maybe it wasn’t a good feeling.

Johnny just knows that Daniel loves these moments, where he gets to see how much of a mess Johnny is and compare it to his own life. Perfect wife, perfect kids, perfect house. It’s hard not to feel bitter and resentful. Maybe a tiny bit jealous.

Not that he’ll ever admit that last one.

He chugs some orange juice and drives over to Miyagi-do. Robby and Samantha are already there, and Johnny makes a beeline for his kid. “You alright?”

Robby raises his eyebrows. “Are _you_ alright?”

“Fine,” Johnny mumbles, suddenly ashamed. “Uh. Look. That won’t happen again.”

“Okay Dad,” says Robby easily, not looking like he believes Johnny for a minute. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry I missed your lesson last night,” he says to Samantha who, to his very great surprise, gives him a little pat on the arm.

“I’m just glad you’re okay.”

He stares at the space she was just standing, rattled, as she bounds off to help Daniel unload a fuckton of paintbrushes and paint from his car. “Didn’t we already do our little arts and crafts project?”

“Oh, this isn’t for the dojo,” says Daniel. “I was just stocking up for future lessons.”

Daniel exchanges a look with Samantha and Robby that’s clearly supposed to convey some sort of inside joke or whatever, as they all start grinning. Johnny folds his arms over his chest. “Lessons?”

“Yeah, lessons,” says Daniel. He picks up a paintbrush and mimics painting up and down. “I’ve found that a wonderful way to teach muscle memory is—”

“Oh no,” Johnny interrupts, realizing at once where this is going. “We are _not_ doing the stupid paint-the-fence thing.”

Daniel drops the paintbrush to his side. “Why not?”

“Because it’s corny,” says Johnny, “not to mention a terrible idea. You trying to get us arrested for violating child labor laws?”

Daniel shoots him an incredulous look. “You know nothing about waivers, but you’re somehow up to speed on child labor laws?”

“LaRusso,” says Johnny, with as much patience in his voice as he can muster, “kids come to a dojo to _learn karate._ I know this shit worked for you—”

“And me,” says Robby.

Of course. “Fine—I know it works for some people, but it doesn’t work for everyone. How do you think I even know about your little paint-the-fence shtick in the first place?”

“It’s not a shtick,” says Daniel, wounded. “And I don’t know, I assume Robby told you?”

“No, it’s because you aren’t the only one who had students switch dojos because they didn’t like the teaching style.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Did you seriously not notice.”

Judging from the look on Daniel’s face, he didn’t. “That lesson didn’t work for Demetri either, Dad,” says Samantha, shocking Johnny for the second time that afternoon.

“But…learning muscle memory is the first step to learning karate—”

“We are not introducing new students to our dojo by having them paint your car or whatever—”

“It’s _wax_ the car, why would I have them paint my car?”

“No,” says Johnny. “If you feel like they need to learn muscle memory and other methods aren’t working, then fine, you can take them aside and do your thing.”

Daniel narrows his eyes. “And what, pray tell, are these other methods? How do you introduce students to karate?”

“Well, the whole point of kata is to teach muscle memory,” says Johnny, “but I like to start by just tossing the kids in the ring. You gotta get the flinch out of them. If they’re afraid to get hit then you’re not going to get anywhere.”

“So you put students with no experience in a sparring match?” asks Samantha, looking unimpressed while Daniel drags his hands down his face.

“Something like that.”

“Absolutely not,” says Daniel from behind his hands.

Johnny grits his teeth. “LaRusso, I swear to god, if I hear you say ‘absolutely not’ one more time—”

“Oh, my god,” Samantha exclaims. She sets down her water bottle and looks between them, exasperated. “How do you two expect to get anything done if you won’t stop arguing?”

“We’ve gotten plenty done,” Daniel protests. “Didn’t you see our white board in there? We have a whole schedule planned out!”

Sam arches an eyebrow. Good lord, she’s Daniel in miniature with some of these faces she makes. “And lesson plans?”

“You’re going to have to compromise on some things, you know,” Robby adds.

“We’re working on it,” says Johnny. “He’s right, we got the stupid white board figured out, and…what?”

Samantha and Robby are exchanging an excited look that Johnny doesn’t like one bit. “Dad,” says Samantha urgently, “you two have to do the balance pond kata!”

“Oh no,” says Daniel at once, “no, I don’t think that’s a good idea—”

“What’s the balance pond kata?” Johnny asks suspiciously.

“It’s a two-person kata,” says Robby, “and it’s designed to teach you and your partner to work together.”

“I don’t think that’s going to help sensei Lawrence and I,” says Daniel.

“Come on Dad, just try it,” wheedles Sam. “It helped Robby and I so much!”

“Yeah sensei LaRusso, just try it,” says Johnny, not because he really wants to, but because he likes the idea of getting under Daniel’s skin by being the reasonable one while Daniel is acting so petulant.

It works. Daniel turns to him with a glare. “You know what? Fine. You wanna do the balance pond kata, let’s do the balance pond kata.”

Five minutes later, Johnny is really regretting his decision to be reasonable, or to come here, or to enter into this whole stupid partnership. “Wait,” he says to Robby, “you want us to get _in_ the water?”

The kata itself is easy enough—Johnny’s always been a fast learner when it comes to physical movement and Daniel’s clearly done this kata half a million times—but doing it on a wobbly platform was going to be something else entirely.

“Yeah,” says Robby, looking as if he’s enjoying this way too much, “that’s the point! It’ll help you and sensei LaRusso learn to move together.”

Johnny squints at him, then at Samantha, then at Daniel himself, trying to see if any of them are fucking with him. “Look, we’ll show you,” says Samantha.

Johnny tries not to gape as she and Robby climb onto the platform and proceed to do the entire kata flawlessly, barely a single wobble between them. Something in his chest balloons as he watches Robby, so confident and strong in his movements. His kid moves like Johnny, but he also moves like Daniel, and the result is something powerful and fluid and calm. His son. His perfect boy.

“So you see,” Robby is saying, as he and Samantha bow to each other, “we were able to sense each other’s movements and coordinate our…why are you looking at me like that?”

“Huh? I’m not,” says Johnny. He gives himself a little shake, forces the undoubtedly sappy look off his face. “Alright, point taken, we’ll work together, compromise, yada yada yada.”

“Come on Dad, you’re not actually gonna do the kata?”

“Yeah Johnny,” says Daniel gleefully, “we’re not actually gonna do the kata?”

Johnny levels a glare at him. “You know what? Fine. We’re doing the kata. Get your ass in the pond, LaRusso.”

“It’s not a sparring match,” Samantha cautions, as Johnny reaches a hand down to pull her out of the pond. “It’s a kata.”

“Yeah yeah,” says Johnny distractedly. “Come on, let’s do this.”

He splashes into the ice-fucking-cold pond and waits for Daniel to follow him. They stand in the water at opposite ends of the pond, eyeballing each other, until Robby clears his throat.

Forget the kata. It takes the two of them a solid five minutes to even get on the fucking platform. Daniel spends the entirety of it bitching at him and in the end, Johnny shoves him off the stupid thing out of sheer spite.

Daniel resurfaces in a rage, sputtering. “Why did you do that?! We finally got on!”

“I slipped,” says Johnny, then sighs when he catches sight of their kids’ disapproving faces. “Fine, c’mere.”

He grabs Daniel’s arm and hauls him onto the platform. For a moment they just kind of stare at each other stupidly, wobbling around and trying to find the best place to stand.

“Now bow,” says Samantha encouragingly.

They eyeball each other to make sure the other is actually going to do it, but they both cave and bow at the same time, moving into the kata.

The first few moves are fine, if some of the sloppiest kata Johnny’s ever done in his life. It goes off the rails when they have to turn and the next thing Johnny knows, he’s in the water.

“What the fuck, LaRusso,” he hollers the second he comes up for air. “You’re smaller than me, you can’t go that close to the center!”

“I didn’t move closer to the center! You turned too fast!”

Johnny throws himself back onto the platform with all the grace of a dying fish, ignoring Daniel’s outstretched hand. He thinks it very big of him for resisting the urge to hook Daniel’s ankle to send him careening into the water as well.

“You have to sense each other’s movements,” Samantha calls from the edge of the pond.

“Whatever that means,” Johnny grumbles, forcing himself to a shaky stand once more.

Daniel sighs. “It means you have to slow down.”

“Maybe _you_ need to speed up.”

“It’s not a race, Johnny.”

“Whatever. Let’s just get this going.”

Their second attempt isn’t any better. Neither is their third, or fourth, or fifth. By the sixth run-through Johnny thinks they really are going to come to blows, and the only thing that stops him from tackling Daniel into the water is the sight of his son splashing into the pond with them.

“Look,” says Robby, and they both stop sniping at each other to stare at him. “You two know each other. If you’d stop acting like you don’t, you would be able to do this no problem.”

“We don’t know each other,” Johnny protests. “We agreed to work together like, five minutes ago—”

“You do know each other,” Robby insists. “You know how the other thinks and moves, and you have to use that. If I were to do this kata with Demetri instead of Sam, it would look very different, right?”

“It would,” says Daniel.

“Right, so. You two have to stop moving like there’s a carbon copy of yourself on the other side of the pond, and…”

“Move in a way that takes your partner’s movements into account,” adds Samantha, when Robby looks at her helplessly.

“Yes!” says Robby. “That.”

Robby wades back to the edge of the pond and pulls himself out. He and Samantha look rather proud of themselves, and Johnny sighs. “Fine.”

This time when they face each other and begin to move, Johnny focuses less on being the last one to fall into the water and more on Daniel. He tries to catch Daniel in his peripheral, tries to slow down his movements slightly even as he notices Daniel speeding up a bit to accommodate him. The result is the two of them moving in unison, flowing through the kata even as the platform wobbles underneath them. Johnny’s so focused on what he’s doing that he’s shocked to find himself at the end of the kata, still on the platform and staring at an equally surprised Daniel.

“Huh,” says Daniel. “How about that.”

“That was great!” says Samantha. “Now do it again.”

Johnny sighs, but they do it again, and again, until their movements have smoothed out, the platform is much less shaky, and the kids are positively beaming. “Yes!” says Robby. “You feel that?”

“Feel what?” says Johnny, but he does. He’s not sure if it’s just the act of physically working out his frustration, or if he and Daniel really have come to some kind of magical, unspoken understanding, but he’s feeling much calmer. He rolls his eyes when Robby makes a face at him. “Eh, I guess that wasn’t so—”

“Well, isn’t this just charming.”

Johnny’s spine goes ramrod straight, icy fingers crawling up the back of his neck as he turns. Kreese is prowling leisurely across the yard, clearly having let himself in like he owns the fucking place. “What the hell are you doing here?” Johnny snaps.

“Thought I’d come see where one of my instructors had run off to,” says Kreese. He takes a puff on his stupid cigar and makes a show of looking around the yard in disdain, eyes lingering on Johnny and Daniel in the balance pond. “Really, Johnny?”

“Okay,” says Johnny. “We’re not doing this.”

He half-glances at Daniel and jerks his head to indicate getting off the platform. The last thing he needs is one of them to fall in the water and look like a moron in front of Kreese. Daniel returns his nod, and they clamber out of the water with at least some semblance of their dignity still in tact.

Johnny makes it to a stand just as Kreese turns to Samantha. “You know, I should tell you that Miss Nichols is very much looking forward to a rematch.”

Kreese claps a hand on Samantha’s shoulder and Johnny’s vision pulses bright crimson. He lunges forward, gets a palm on Kreese’s broad chest and shoves him backwards. “Don’t touch her,” he snarls.

“Samantha, Robby, inside,” he hears Daniel saying over the thundering in his ears. “Go. Now.”

Kreese raises an eyebrow. “I was just saying hello, Johnny. Relaying a message from a rival.”

“She and Tory aren’t rivals,” snaps Johnny, although they probably are. “You ever come over here and put a hand on one of my kids again, I’ll break every one of your fucking fingers—”

“Johnny,” says Daniel, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Johnny comes back down to earth enough to realize that Daniel has succeeded in getting the kids to go inside, that he’s moved up next to Johnny. “And don’t think I don’t know exactly what kind of bullshit you’ve been putting in Tory’s head,” Johnny continues. “She’s a good kid and if you fuck that up—”

“You’ll what?”

Johnny gets in his face. “I’ll make you wish you’d never come back to this town, that’s what.”

“You’re not welcome here,” says Daniel, as if Johnny hasn’t just made that crystal fucking clear. “Get the hell out of our dojo or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

“ _Our_ dojo,” Kreese says with relish. “So it is true, then. You’ve…joined forces.”

He makes little air quotes. Johnny decides then and there that if he does it again, he really is going to break Kreese’s fingers.

“What do you want?” Daniel snaps.

“As I told you,” says Kreese, “to see where one of my instructors ran off to. I see now that it’s a lost cause—”

“So no reason, then,” Johnny interrupts. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? You steal my dojo—”

“Mr. Lawrence, I assure you, it was never your dojo—”

“ _My dojo,_ then you come over here and start harassing the kids—”

“What do you mean, _one_ of your instructors?” Daniel asks suspiciously. Johnny has to backtrack a little to realize what he’s talking about.

Kreese doesn’t answer, just zeroes in on Johnny. “You want me to stay away from your students, fine. But you stay away from mine, Johnny. I know you’ve been to see some of them.”

Johnny’s stomach drops, because he has been to see some of them and he’s uneasy thinking about just how Kreese found that out. “They’re _my_ students.”

“We’ll see,” says Kreese serenely. “As much as I’ve enjoyed this little conversation, I’m afraid I must be on my way.”

“Yeah, you do that,” says Johnny.

Kreese takes his time crossing the yard, giving one of the punching bags a little push just to be a dick. He’s just reached the gate when he snaps his fingers and turns around. “Ah, Daniel, I almost forgot to mention.” He taps the ash from his cigar right into one of Daniel’s bonsai trees and fixes him with a smile that Johnny doesn’t like one bit. “Mr. Silver sends his regards.”

Johnny can practically feel the tension in the air spike as Daniel goes very still next to him, staring at Kreese with an expression Johnny absolutely cannot read. “What?” Daniel asks, but he sounds all wrong, lost and shaky and suddenly so very young.

“One of my new instructors,” says Kreese, a faintly triumphant look on his face. “Surely you haven’t forgotten Mr. Silver?”

“Whoever the fuck that is,” says Johnny impatiently. “Great, message received, now get the fuck out of here.”

Kreese finally leaves. He doesn’t even bother to latch the gate properly, so Johnny stomps across the yard and slams it shut. “What a fucking asshole,” Johnny fumes. “Coming over here to piss on our fire hydrant, dangle my students in front of me. You should’ve helped me kick his ass.”

“Johnny,” says Daniel.

“I know, I know,” says Johnny, waving an impatient hand. “But listen, _fuck_ him. I’m telling you, we should go over to Cobra Kai next and—”

“Johnny.”

“Just walk in there and set those kids straight—do you think he’d back off if we challenged him to some sort of fight? That’s how his mind works—”

_“Johnny.”_

“ _What?_ ” Johnny says impatiently, and falters when he spins around and gets a good look at Daniel, pale and wide-eyed and shaking, actually _shaking_. “The fuck is the matter with you?”

“We can’t let him come here,” says Daniel, which clears up absolutely nothing.

Johnny blinks at him. “Yeah, I _know_ that. The next time he shows his ugly mug here, you’re not stopping me. I’m gonna kick his ass so hard—”

“Not Kreese,” says Daniel. “Silver.”

Johnny does some more conversation backtracking. “The guy Kreese mentioned? Who the fuck is—”

“He can’t _come here,_ ” says Daniel, a note of hysteria that Johnny’s never heard before creeping into his voice. “You don’t understand, we can’t let him—”

“Alright, slow down,” says Johnny, because Daniel looks like he’s about to have some sort of fit and he really, _really_ doesn’t want to have to explain that to Samantha LaRusso. “Who is Silver?”

Daniel refocuses slightly. “You don’t know?”

“Why would I know who Silver is?” asks Johnny, but even as he says it, a weird feeling of deja vu creeps over him, the name catching in his memory this time. “Wait, wait. I have heard the name before—at that stupid meeting I had to attend to—”

But Daniel’s not listening to him. He’s looking around wildly, as if he expects this guy to pop right out of the fucking bushes and knife the pair of them. “Sam and Robby,” he says, panicked. “We can’t let them get to Sam and Robby!”

“Hey,” says Johnny. He catches Daniel’s arm and jerks him around so that they’re facing each other. “LaRusso, snap out of it. Sam and Robby are fine, they’re inside—”

He startles into silence when Daniel clutches at his arms, eyes so filled with fear that it sends a chill down the back of Johnny’s neck. “You don’t understand,” says Daniel, his voice gone breathless like he’s just run a marathon. “You don’t understand what he does, we can’t let him near the kids, we can’t, we can’t—”

“Okay, we won’t,” says Johnny, alarmed, but he may as well be talking to one of the heavy bags for all that Daniel’s listening to him. He’s completely checked out, eyes wide and staring at nothing, breathing so hard that Johnny’s convinced he’s about to pass out. “Are you freaking out or something? Maybe you should sit down—”

He reaches up to grab Daniel’s arms, to shake him or shove him or make him sit down or _something,_ but Daniel jerks back so hard at the touch that he stumbles into the fence and half-sits, half-falls to the ground and buries his face in his hands.

Fuck. He _is_ freaking out. Johnny glances around wildly, half-hoping at this point that Samantha will come sprinting out into the yard to deal with whatever this is, but she’s nowhere in sight. Neither is Robby.

There’s no one but Johnny.

Johnny drops into a crouch in front of Daniel, grabs his arms and shakes him hard. “LaRusso, calm down! If you don’t breathe you’re gonna pass out, and your kid’s gonna be pissed!”

Daniel drops his hands from his face, but Johnny can see at once that he’s not really here. “I don’t—want to—do this—anymore,” he gasps, and for a moment Johnny thinks he’s talking about this brilliant joint-dojo idea—

Until he says, “Mr. Miyagi, I messed up,” and Johnny realizes he’s dealing with some sort of full blown fucking _flashback._ “I messed up, I don’t want to fight anymore, I don’t want to fight him—”

“LaRusso,” says Johnny loudly, because Daniel is starting to gulp for air and Johnny’s pretty sure he really is about to faint. “Listen—”

“He’s going to hurt them,” Daniel says, so Johnny assumes they’re at least back in the present. “We have to protect them, he’ll hurt them—”

“No one’s going to hurt them,” says Johnny, and he gives Daniel a little shake again. “LaRusso, _listen to me_ —Daniel! Snap out of it!”

Daniel’s eyes finally lock onto his, and Johnny’s horrified to realize that they’re all wet and shiny like he’s going to start crying. “No one is going to hurt the kids,” says Johnny wildly, determined to keep talking now that Daniel’s actually looking at him. “Not Kreese, not Silver-whoever-the-fuck, not anyone. You hear me? They’re going to have to step over my dead body first. Now, stop freaking out and fucking _breathe._ ”

Daniel closes his eyes, drops his head between his knees and draws in a breath. It’s thin and shaky and it sounds like he’s breathing through a straw. “You sound like an asthmatic eighty-year-old,” says Johnny. “Do it again, but better.”

A movement catches his eye and he half-turns to see Samantha and Robby hovering uncertainly in the doorway, late to the fucking party, of course. As much as Johnny wants to call Samantha out here, he knows that he’d be absolutely mortified if he were in Daniel’s position and Robby saw him like this.

Besides, he’s handling this. Sort of. Johnny shakes his head hard, tries to convey with his eyes that it’s fine, he’s got this, go back inside now, kids.

He _doesn’t_ have this, but it works. Robby nods and Johnny wants to kiss his son for the way he tugs Samantha gently back inside. Johnny refocuses on Daniel, who’s still making choked little half-wheezes. “Christ, LaRusso, I said _breathe._ ”

“Can’t,” says Daniel, head still bowed between his knees. “Can’t…”

“Yes, you can.” Johnny reaches out and grabs his shoulder, gives it another shake. “Calm down, alright? No one’s here, it’s just us.”

Daniel reaches up and grips Johnny’s wrist, the one that’s still on his shoulder. For a moment Johnny thinks he’s going to shove him off, but he doesn’t, just holds so tight to Johnny’s wrist he thinks it might bruise. “You’re fine,” says Johnny. “Just breathe.”

Slowly, Daniel does, his wheezes turning first into gasps, then into shaky breathes, and finally into deep, meditative ones. Johnny waits until he’s breathing normally before taking his hand off Daniel’s shoulder and collapsing out of his crouch to sit in front of him. He chances a glance at the dojo again and sees Samantha and Robby peering out of the window. Johnny makes a stop motion— _just wait_ —and Samantha nods reluctantly.

“Do you need…water?” Johnny asks awkwardly.

Daniel shakes his head, and Johnny pretends not to notice as he roughly draws an arm across his eyes. “I’m okay.”

“You just almost passed out in the fucking pond,” says Johnny. “You are the opposite of okay.”

“We’re nowhere near the pond, Johnny.”

“Whatever.” Johnny nudges one of Daniel’s knees. “What the fuck, LaRusso?”

Daniel looks up and sighs. “I need to tell you something.”

“Yeah, I’ll say you do,” says Johnny. “Let’s go, out with it.”

“What do you want to know?”

Johnny gestures widely. “I don’t know, what the _fuck_ was that? What was Kreese talking about? Who is Silver? Why do you think he’s gonna hurt the kids? Do we need to call the cops or something?”

Daniel’s quiet for a moment, glancing towards the dojo—the kids have thankfully made themselves scarce. “Terry Silver was my sensei.” He meets Johnny’s eyes. “At Cobra Kai.”

“You weren’t a student at Cobra Kai,” says Johnny blankly, although he can’t imagine why Daniel would lie about it.

“I was,” says Daniel. “For a time, in eighty-five. He was helping me train for the tournament.”

This doesn’t sound right at all. “Why wasn’t your precious Miyagi training you for the tournament?”

“He didn’t believe in tournaments—only helped me in eighty-four to get you and your buddies to back off,” says Daniel and great, they’re back to that again. “But he didn’t want me to fight again in eighty-five. I didn’t either, after I thought about it.”

“So…why did you?”

Daniel scrubs his hands over his face, looking exhausted. “Silver was one of Kreese’s old war buddies—he was the financial backer for Cobra Kai. They wanted to—I don’t know, reclaim their honor, or Cobra Kai’s honor, or something. So they hired this guy named Mike Barnes to fight against me in the tournament.”

“Which you weren’t even entering,” says Johnny, and right as he says it, he realizes where this is going.

“Barnes wouldn’t leave me alone,” says Daniel. “He kept showing up with the application, threatening me, telling me I had to enter this tournament—”

“Couldn’t you just tell him to fuck off?”

Daniel fixes him with a look. “He dangled me and a friend off a cliff.”

“Off a _cliff?_ ” Now it’s Johnny’s turn to scrub a hand over his face. “What do you mean, off a cliff?”

“We were climbing down that a ravine to retrieve one of Mr. Miyagi’s bonsai trees—”

“One of his trees? Why was one of his trees—”

“Johnny,” says Daniel through gritted teeth, “forget the cliff. Forget the tree. It doesn’t matter. The point is, he threatened my life and Jessica’s. I signed the stupid papers and agreed to enter. Mr. Miyagi didn’t want to train me, so Silver shows up out of nowhere, tells me Kreese is dead, acts like he's my friend, and offers to train me.”

“To train you,” says Johnny slowly. “Wasn’t that…I don’t know, counter-productive to their goal of beating you?”

Daniel shakes his head. “The training was…just another way to punish me. He made this dummy, but it wasn’t the normal breaking boards, it was two-by-fours…”

He quiets, eyes going distant as he looks down at his hands. “Hey, uh-uh,” says Johnny, snapping a finger in front of his face. “None of that, stay here. So he made you break two-by-fours like a complete psychopath, what else?”

Johnny tries not to interrupt after that, but it’s hard not to. The crazy, diabolical plan, the insane training regimen, the three-on-one fight…the whole thing is so absurd he can hardly believe it, but he can tell from the look on Daniel’s face that he’s not bullshitting him. When Daniel starts talking about the tournament itself, Johnny can’t resist. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. This Brown guy—”

“Barnes—”

“Yeah, him—he was fucking with the point system? Get a solid point, then a penalty so he’d lose it? All so he could, what, hit you as much as possibly?”

“That’s right,” says Daniel dully.

“ _In_ the tournament,” Johnny clarifies. “In front of all those people. And no one stopped him?”

Daniel snorts. “Of course no one stopped him, haven’t you been listening? It was probably Kreese or Silver who came up with the whole plan.”

“But Miyagi,” Johnny presses. “The judge. Shit, anyone in the audience. No one did anything?”

“Well, I don’t know if it looked that bad from the outside.”

Johnny highly doubts that, but Daniel’s starting to look defensive so Johnny drops it for now. “That’s fucked up, LaRusso.”

“Yeah,” says Daniel with a sigh. “At any rate, I won the competition. They did leave me alone after that.”

“What a bunch of nutters,” says Johnny. He is so, _so_ glad he left Cobra Kai when he did. “I knew Kreese was off his rocker, but this…”

Daniel nods, blows out a breath. “I know it’s stupid,” he says after a minute. “To still be so affected by something that happened all those years ago. You know I…” he hesitates, then seems to figure, what the hell. “You know I freaked out like that on my second date with Amanda? Worse than this, even. We barely knew each other. Some scene in a movie came on and the next thing I know I’m having a meltdown in front of this amazing girl I barely know. I’m surprised she didn’t walk out then and there.”

“I’m not,” says Johnny, and Daniel looks up at him. “Amanda’s a good chick. She gets it.”

“Gets what?”

Johnny shrugs, picks at a blade of grass. “That you were…you know. You were just a kid when it happened. Sometimes I still….think about all that shit. Kreese trying to kill me. Everything that happened before and after.”

Daniel’s eyes meet his again. “After?”

Johnny shrugs again. “The point is…we were just kids. We didn’t know any better. We can’t help that part.”

He’s tried to tell himself that same thing a million times, but the truth is, he’s never actually believed it. But sitting here now, listening to Daniel LaRusso tell his story, he feels an acceptance in those words he’s never felt before; he feels an almost overwhelming relief to know that he isn’t the only one still haunted by the past.

That maybe all those nights he woke up gasping from night terrors doesn’t mean he’s weak, after all.

Johnny reaches out and nudges Daniel’s knee. “You freak out like that a lot?”

“Not a lot,” says Daniel defensively. “Once a month at most. Usually less. Once I went almost a whole year without it.”

“It sounds like you have that PSD thing,” Johnny says wisely.

“It’s P-T-S-D, first of all, and I don’t have it.”

“Sounds like you might,” says Johnny. “I don’t know, I’m not a head doctor. Maybe you should talk to someone about that.”

Daniel’s eyebrows almost levitate off his forehead. “What, like a shrink? Thought you’d be the first person to sneer at something like that.”

“My mom went to one for a few months,” says Johnny. “She always seemed better after, so I think it helped. And I’ve heard some of my students talk about their doctors. Kind of weird how they want to talk about their problems to the whole dojo, but whatever. I don’t think it’s as hush hush as it used to be.”

“Yeah,” says Daniel. “But still. I don’t need to see a shrink.”

“You just almost fucking passed out. That ever happen when you’re driving?”

“Well…I mean, I pulled the car over.”

“Uh huh,” says Johnny, but something behind Daniel’s eyes is starting to shutter closed. Johnny drops it for now. “Look. I’m sorry that happened to you, it’s fucked up. And…I’m sorry for my part in it. For everything that happened in high school. I was a stupid little shit back then. And for everything now, too. Guess I’m still a stupid shit sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” says Daniel, but he’s smiling. “Thanks, Johnny. I’m sorry, too. All of this could’ve been avoided if we’d just…”

He makes a wide gesture that means nothing, but Johnny gets it. “So…all this time,” says Johnny, then cringes. “Never mind.”

Daniel raises his eyebrows. “No, what?”

“All this time, the way you were trying so hard to keep Cobra Kai from re-opening…it wasn’t all to do with me?"

Johnny can barely get the words out, his cheeks flushing. He sounds like a fucking high school girl asking if her best friend is mad at her, but—he has to know.

“ _Most_ of it wasn’t to do with you,” says Daniel, looking surprised. “Is that what you’ve been thinking?”

Johnny gives him an exasperated look. “What was I supposed to think?”

“Alright, fair,” says Daniel. “I guess I’ve just…made you the face of it. Sorry for that, too.”

Johnny waves him aside, trying not to belay the weird, massive relief he feels at those words. “It’s fine. No more apologies, alright? And no more secrets either, not about this shit. There’s too much at stake.”

“I agree,” says Daniel. “I should’ve told you this sooner. I just…I can’t believe Silver’s still alive.”

“We don’t for a fact that he is,” says Johnny. “You know Kreese. He could just be spouting bullshit to fuck with your head.”

“What if he’s not?”

“Well, then we’ll deal with it.”

Daniel clenches his fists. “What if he—”

“What if he _what,_ LaRusso?” Johnny asks impatiently. “Comes here and tries to start shit? Let him. I’ve been itching for a good fight.”

“The kids—”

“We’re protecting the kids. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it?”

“If Silver really is working with Kreese, it’s too late,” says Daniel.

“It’s _not_ too late. I swear to god, LaRusso, I will not let either of these fucks go near the kids. We’re gonna get that dojo shut down if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

He stands, reaching down a hand to Daniel, who takes it and allows Johnny to pull him to his feet. “You good?”

“Yeah,” says Daniel, and he does look calmer now. “I’m good. Let’s order some food.”

They head inside to the dojo where Sam and Robby are waiting with ill-disguised anxiety. Robby walks over to Johnny. “Everything okay?”

Johnny watches Sam get her dad a glass of water under the guise of getting some for everyone, and slings an arm around his son. “Yeah, I think it’s going to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that trailer was enough to sustain me throughout the rest of 2020. all my dreams y'all, **ALL MY DREAMS.**


	5. thread

Johnny was so sure he and Daniel had thought of everything. The dojo had been painted and renovated to reflect their joint styles, the white board schedule refined and translated onto their website and neat little fliers. They had gone through a practice lesson with Samantha and Robby that both kids agreed (with more surprise than Johnny thought was necessary) went well. They had even gathered all of the students together ahead of time for what Daniel called a heart-to-heart and Johnny called a come-to-Jesus meeting, in which they’d told the kids in no uncertain terms that there was to be no bullshit or rivalry in the dojo, they were all on the same side now.

But they’d completely forgotten about the gis.

“Why,” Daniel hisses in horror as they watch the students file in through the back gate, “didn’t you tell them not to wear their Cobra Kai gis?!”

Johnny gestures at the Miyago-do students who, despite their come-to-Jesus talk, are clustered far away from the former Cobra Kai students. “Why didn’t you tell them not to wear theirs?”

Daniel runs a hand through his hair. “Okay. It’s okay, we’ll just—”

“Tell them to ditch the gi tops for today,” says Johnny, at the same time Daniel says “deal with it for now.”

They stare at each other. “They can’t ditch the gi tops,” says Daniel, as if Johnny had just suggested they tell the students to strip naked. “The dojo is a place of _respect_ —”

“LaRusso—” Johnny pauses, forces himself to take a deep breath, if only because half of the students are watching them very, very closely. “Look, I’m not saying I disagree, but there’s no way they can go through their first class wearing two different gi tops. It’s going to divide them even more.”

“Fine,” says Daniel, after waging what is clearly a brief but intense internal war, “but we need to figure this out immediately, I cannot _believe_ we forgot about a logo—”

“I can design a logo for you.”

Johnny nearly jumps out of skin as Aisha materializes at his elbow out of nowhere. Sneaky and stealthy, just like a cobra. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” says Aisha. “I’m good at graphic design. Have you two thought about how you’d like it to look?”

Johnny ponders this. “Can you make it badass?”

Aisha grins. “Of course, sensei.”

“Now hold on,” says Daniel.

Johnny sighs. “Can you make it badass _and_ boring?”

“I’ll see what I can come up with,” says Aisha thoughtfully, as Daniel glares at him.

“I thought we’d agreed to use the bonsai tree.”

“We agreed to no such thing,” says Johnny incredulously, “and you know it. If I don’t get the Cobra Kai snake, you don’t get the tree. End of story.”

“So just because we can’t use the snake for legality reasons means we can’t use my perfectly good logo?”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

“Johnny.”

“LaRusso, come _on_.” He gestures at the knot of former Cobra Kai students, huddled together and eyeballing Miyagi-do suspiciously. “Do you know how hard it was to get them to agree to come here? I had to get Miguel to time-face them—”

“You mean FaceTime—”

“—and give them all his best injury eyes to agree to come here. They’re already wary because they feel they’re on the Miyagi-do turf. You try to stuff them all in a bunch of the tree gis, they’re gonna bolt.”

Daniel is silent for a moment, watching the students as they continue to divide into two groups. “Fine, you’re right.”

Johnny cups a hand over his ear. “What was that?”

“Shut up, Johnny.”

Johnny claps him on the shoulder and turns to face the students. “Alright, listen up. QUIET! Our new gi tops haven’t arrived yet, so for now we’re going gi-less. I want everyone’s tops in a pile right here. _Now,_ ” he adds, when silence reigns and they all continue to stare at him.

Slowly, reluctantly, the students shed their gi tops. There’s about five minutes where everyone changes back into the t-shirts they’d arrived in, and Daniel goes to find some for those who don’t have a spare. By the time they get everyone lined up, it’s already fifteen minutes into the class.

“Welcome, everyone,” says Daniel, looking for all the world as if he’s about to pass out at the sight of so many students at Miyagi-do. “Thank you all for being here…I know this wasn’t an easy decision…for some of you. But we’re all working together now—well, you know that, we talked about it…”

He stares at the students. The students stare back. Johnny restrains a sigh and eye roll combo with extreme difficulty. “Alright, fifty push-ups, let’s go. We’re gonna get warmed up and do some partner work—and I don’t want to hear shit about it,” he finishes sternly, as Bert opens his mouth to complain. “Push-ups, now.”

Daniel casts him a despairing look, but when every single one of the students drops and starts doing push-ups, he just mutters, “Fifty?”

“I used to do a hundred in one go, LaRusso, they can handle it.”

They can barely handle it, but Johnny thinks Daniel might actually have a heart attack if Johnny berates them, so he bites his tongue for now and just finishes warming the students up. He and Daniel had gone back and forth a hundred times on whether or not to do partner work the first class. Daniel had thought it was too soon while Johnny argued that a rip-the-bandaid-off approach was best. They’d settled on a drill that would cycle the students through multiple partners—giving them a chance to work with someone new without pressing the issue.

“Alright,” says Daniel, exchanging a look with Johnny. It’s now or never. “Let’s pair up now…”

* * *

Johnny wakes up as the sun is rising the next morning. He tosses and turns for a while, trying to fall back asleep, but he feels wide awake and anxious. It seems impossible that it was only three weeks ago that he and Daniel made their deal in rush hour traffic. Their first class had a few bumps, but he’s shocked at how well it went overall, at how natural and right it had felt. They’d kept the students moving constantly, with the end result that it left little time for them to start any bullshit with each other.

They have something here, him and Daniel. They have something good and he’s pissed off about it, because it’s Daniel LaRusso, and because some of Daniel’s stupid methods not only actually work but line up perfectly with Johnny’s—

And because they’d lost so much goddamn time.

He thinks that last part so quietly that he almost misses it inside his own head. It’s uncomfortable and not something he wants to examine too closely. He’d gone into this expecting to grit his teeth and bear it—and there had been plenty of that, sure, but there’d also been a lot of cathartic sparring sessions and dumb arts and crafts projects with that 80s rock station Daniel always put on and one long, hilarious karate movie binge with Amanda that afternoon they’d gotten so fed up with their Scheduling Strategy Session that they’d thrown on movie after movie.

Could they always have had this?

Johnny pushes the thought away hard. It doesn’t matter, because they hadn’t, and they’d done too much and had too much done to them, things that he doesn’t know if they’ll ever be able to truly move past.

_Fuck_ this.

Johnny throws back his covers and climbs out of bed, because if he stays there another minute he’s going to scream. He makes a pot of coffee and leaves some on for Robby, who is still dead to the world in his room.

The hospital is busy already. Johnny makes his way to Miguel’s room, his chest warming at the sight of the kid awake and alert in his bed. “Hey, champ.”

Miguel brightens. “Sensei! What are you doing here?”

“I brought you breakfast,” says Johnny, dropping the greasy McDonald’s bag on the bedside table. “You need better than that shitty hospital food if you wanna keep up your strength.”

“So you brought me an egg mcmuffin?”

“I brought you _three_ egg mcmuffins,” Johnny corrects. “And a whole bunch of other stuff, too. Now go on, eat.”

They dig into the food with gusto. “Aisha told me the class went well.”

“How do you kids find everything out so fast?”

“We text, sensei,” says Miguel.

Johnny shakes his head. “She also tell you she’s designing a new logo? Apparently she’s an _artiste_ or something.”

“She did,” says Miguel, grinning mysteriously. “And she is. A really good one. I think you’re gonna love it.”

“You’ve seen it?” Johnny makes a swipe for his phone. “Is it on that thing? Show me!”

“No way,” Miguel laughs. “Just, trust me. You’ll love it. It’s pretty badass.”

“Good. You’ll be wearing it too, so.”

“I hope so,” says Miguel with a sigh. “The doctors still don’t know when I can go home.”

“We’ll figure it all out,” says Johnny firmly.

They fall into a comfortable silence. A thought occurs to Johnny as he watches Miguel check something on his phone. “Hey. Didn’t you tell me once that you had watched a tape of my eighty-four fight with LaRusso?”

“It wasn’t a videotape,” says Miguel, “it was a YouTube video. But yeah. Some of the other students and I watched it.”

Johnny grimaces, but nods. “Do they have every year of the All Valley on the YouTube?”

“Most of them,” says Miguel. “Not the really early ones, but…”

“Can you pull up eighty-five? The final match.”

Miguel eyes him. “The one LaRusso was in?”

“Yeah.”

Johnny feels a little guilty as Miguel pulls the tournament video up on Johnny’s phone, but it doesn’t stop him from propping his elbows up on Miguel’s hospital bed to watch the video. He knows what he’s about to watch, but a part of Johnny still expects to see something akin to his own match with Daniel—some illegal moves, but a mostly sane match.

Despite everything Daniel had told him, Johnny wasn’t expecting this.

He stares for a while at the thumbnail after the video ends, switches back to the still of Daniel on the ground looking up at Miyagi. Johnny supposes they chose it because it represents the moment the hero chose to keep fighting or whatever, but Johnny doesn’t think Daniel looks particularly brave or determined. He doesn’t even look upset or scared.

He just looks like he isn’t even there at all.

“That was intense,” says Miguel, looking at Johnny like he’s not sure what he’ll find in his face. “Kind of messed up.”

“Yeah,” says Johnny, leaning back in his chair. “Kind of messed up.”

“Why did you want to watch that?”

“Wanted to see LaRusso get his ass kicked,” says Johnny, but he can’t muster up the heat the half-hearted joke needs and he can tell Miguel isn’t buying it, anyway. “We think there’s a chance that guy might be teaching at Cobra Kai with Kreese. Wanted to see what we were dealing with.”

Miguel frowns, scrolls back in the video to the bit where Terry Silver can be seen screaming like an absolute fucking lunatic from the sidelines. “That guy?”

“Yeah,” says Johnny, watching him loom over Daniel. “That guy.”

“What do you mean you _think_ he’s teaching at Cobra Kai?”

“Kreese came over to Miyagi-do, said a bunch of shit. Sounds like he might have other instructors.”

“I could ask Hawk about it,” Miguel offers.

Johnny raises his eyebrows. “You and Hawk are talking?”

“Kind of,” says Miguel with a sigh. “He’s still…you know.”

“Pissed at me.”

“Pissed at everyone, I think,” says Miguel. “I’m working on convincing him to switch dojos, but he doesn’t want to hear it. I can ask him about a new instructor, though. Or maybe some of my friends can sneak over to Cobra Kai to get some intel and—”

“No way,” says Johnny, sitting up so fast he almost falls out of his chair. “Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? No one is going over to Cobra to get some intel. _I_ will go over to Cobra Kai. You tell your friends—”

“Alright, alright,” says Miguel, rolling his eyes. “Calm down, _dad,_ geez.”

Johnny can tell he meant it as a joke, but the weight of the word hits them bother harder than expected. Miguel colors immediately and Johnny can’t stop what’s an undoubtedly sappy grin. “For real,” says Johnny, reaching out to ruffle Miguel’s hair. “No one is going over to Cobra Kai. Text your friends and tell them. Got it?”

“ _Yeeeees,_ ” says Miguel, dragging out the word and, for once, sounding like the whiny teenager he’s supposed to be. “But I don’t think _you_ should be going over there either.”

“I’m the adult,” Johnny reminds him. “And it’s about time I started acting like one.”

* * *

Johnny drives directly from the hospital to the LaRusso house, where he runs into Amanda in the driveway. “Johnny,” says says, sounded surprised but not unhappy to see him. He’s still not used to that. “I didn’t know you were coming by, I would’ve saved you some lunch.”

“Nah,” says Johnny, waving a hand. “It wasn’t planned, just—is Daniel here?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” says Amanda. “Go on in, make yourself at home. I’ll be back in about an hour—got a few errands to run.”

Johnny nods his thanks and lets himself into the LaRusso’s house. He heads right for Daniel, who is seated at the kitchen table frowning at a bunch of papers.

He glances up, surprised. “Johnny? Is everything—”

“Miyagi should’ve pulled you from that fight,” says Johnny without preamble. He tosses his phone down onto the table, where it’s displaying the All Valley ‘85 tournament that Miguel had pulled up for him.

Daniel’s eyes flick down to the phone, his jaw tightening as he recognizes the video still. He doesn’t look surprised, which tells Johnny he already knows it’s on there internet and that he’s probably watched it a thousand times. He’s sure the therapist Daniel refuses to see would find that super healthy.

“It wasn’t Mr. Miyagi’s fault,” Daniel snaps.

“I didn’t say it was Miyagi’s _fault,_ I said he should’ve pulled you.” says Johnny. He pulls out a chair next to Daniel and drops into it. “Besides, it sure as shit wasn’t yours.”

“Mr. Miyagi knew I had to push through my fear,” Daniel continues stubbornly. “If he’d stopped the fight, those guys never would’ve left me alone. Winning was the only way to end it.”

“Look,” says Johnny, and then pauses for a while. “I’m not trying to bag on Miyagi. He was a good guy and he always tried to do right by you. Hell, he was probably even right about you needing to win that fight to get those psychos to back off. But still.”

“Still what, Johnny?”

“ _Still,_ no kid deserves that.” Daniel just keeps staring at the paused video on Johnny’s phone, so Johnny turns it face down. “Still. I would’ve pulled one of our kids out of that mess.”

Daniel finally looks at him, and Johnny can tell he’s said the right thing. “You didn’t pull Miguel,” he says, but his voice is more curious than accusatory.

“I know,” says Johnny. “I realized too late what was wrong, but I should’ve. I won’t let that happen again.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” says Johnny in exasperation. “You’re the one who views karate tournaments as life or death, not me. It’s a sport, LaRusso, and that’s how we’re gonna treat it. If this Silver character really is teaching at Cobra Kai, and he shows up at a tournament and screams at one of our kids like that, I’m going to stop the match, and then I’m going to get in this fucker’s _face_ and—”

“Alright, alright,” says Daniel, but that weird fuzziness is fading fast from his eyes and when he looks at Johnny, he’s more present. “Thanks, Johnny. I just don’t know if I could face him.”

“You don’t have to face him. _I_ will handle it.”

Daniel’s defensiveness makes a swift return, right on cue. “It’s not that I _can_ _’t_ handle it—”

“No, it _is_ that you can’t handle it,” says Johnny. “And that’s not your fault, but you do need to do something about it.”

“What, like confront him?”

“ _No,_ Dan, it means you need to see like, a fucking therapist about this shit,” says Johnny, because Miguel had told him that the word shrink was apparently one of a million that was now considered “inappropriate” these days. He’s kind of proud of himself, for being so reasonable and calm, although it still feels weird that he’s suggesting therapy while Daniel LaRusso is suggesting some kind of death match to assert dominance.

“I don’t need to see a shrink,” says Daniel.

“You completely freaked out at the mention of that guy’s name,” says Johnny. “Seriously, I thought you were gonna pass out. You said that happened before while you were driving—”

“It doesn’t happen often, though.”

“But it still happens,” Johnny presses.

“Look, I’ve tried therapy before, and it doesn’t work for me—”

“Well, maybe you were just seeing a quack,” says Johnny. “Look. If this happened to Sam, would you want her to talk to someone?”

_Point,_ he thinks triumphantly, as Daniel goes very still. “If anyone ever did that to Sam—”

“You’d kill them, I know,” says Johnny, waving an impatient hand. “I’d fucking help you. That’s not the point and you know it.”

“Yeah,” says Daniel reluctantly, after a long pause. “Yeah, I’d want her to talk to someone.”

Johnny makes a _there-you-go_ gesture, but Daniel’s still shaking his head. “But this was so long ago, John, I _absolutely_ do not need to see a shrink about it.”

“Well, then, I _absolutely_ do not need to go to an AA meeting.”

Their eyes meet. “So you’re saying, what, if I go see a shrink, you’ll go to an AA meeting?”

“Yeah.” Johnny shrugs when Daniel looks skeptical. “I’m serious, man. We’re already up each other’s ass about everything else, may as well try to deal with this stupid shit together, too.”

“Keep each other accountable,” says Daniel slowly. “That could work. But no laughing, or jokes—”

“I can’t promise the jokes,” says Johnny. “But do you see me laughing?”

“No…I guess not.” Daniel regards him, half-suspicious, half-impressed. “When did you become so reasonable?”

“Maybe I’ve always been reasonable and you just love to see the worst in me.”

He means it as a joke, sort of, but Daniel’s face goes all grave and serious and Johnny just knows they’re about to have a moment. “Look, Johnny—”

“No, come on, I was kidding—”

Daniel puts a hand on his forearm and Johnny rolls his eyes. “I’m sorry,” Daniel says sincerely.

“Didn’t we say no more apologies?” Johnny asks, pained, but he gives Daniel’s arm a little pat back. “Alright, stop, stop being weird. Just go to the doctor and I’ll go to a meeting, deal?”

“Deal,” says Daniel, and they shake on it.

* * *

“Sensei! Mr. LaRusso—I mean. Sensei LaRusso. Sorry, it’s just weird calling you Sensei—”

“Miss Robinson,” Johnny interrupts. “Breathe. The hell’s got you so wound up?”

Aisha drops her backpack on the floor next to where she’s cornered Daniel and Johnny in the dojo. She’s one of the first students to arrive, but the ones that are there already eye her in interest as she whips out her tablet with a flourish. “I have the logo.”

“Already?” Johnny asks, impressed. “I thought that art shit would take like…months.”

Daniel gives him a look. “Months?”

“Well, I’m not a painter, how should I know?”

“I didn’t paint it, Sensei,” says Aisha. “I designed it—look.”

Johnny braces himself as she flips the tablet around and feels Daniel do the same next to him—

And then his jaw drops.

There is a bonsai tree in it, but there’s much, much more than a tree. There’s also a snake, curled around the base and ready to strike, and a crane, taking flight towards the air. They don’t look like they’re fighting each other, but rather, like they’re watching each others’ backs—like they’re defending what’s there’s, from ground and sky.

It’s perfect.

“You made that?” he asks, when he can speak. “All by yourself?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Miss Robinson,” says Johnny, tearing his eyes away from the glorious logo to look at he solemnly, “this is some Picasso shit. I love it.”

Aisha’s whole face lights up and Johnny’s pretty convinced these kids are going to be the actual death of him. “Really?”

“Hell yes,” he says, then slants a glance at Daniel. “Well? What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful,” Daniel breathes. “Thank you, Aisha. Can you email that to me? I want to get those gis as soon as possible. And—”

He heads over to his wallet to grab his checkbook, and Aisha holds up her hands. “Oh—no no, I don’t need any money—”

“Yes you do,” says Johnny, leaning over Daniel’s shoulder. “This is professional shit—put a lot of zeroes in there LaRusso, there ya go.”

Aisha is bright red, but she takes the check and runs off with her tablet to show the other students—which, Johnny is pleased to see, consists of kids from both dojos.

“Badass,” says Daniel, watching them.

Johnny grins. “It sure fucking is, LaRusso.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> logo design inspired by this [badass art here](https://mobile.twitter.com/POPALCHEMY/status/723034334848901120)
> 
> SEASON THREE LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO


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